Thurisaz

This stave when I did the meditation at the Rune Class was first very hard to see.  I instantly got a headache when we started the meditation work, and I felt it was an energy block from this stave.  I made myself push through the energy block and came into my space in the woods, but it was night, and a almost full or full moon.  A distance away from the fire where Zealu and the Quiet Warrior sat was a tree.  I walked to the tree with my black silver wolf to get a better look.  I saw a dead black alder tree, the limbs were all broken off and the tree was frozen.  In the tree was carved the Thurisaz stave.  The tree and stave stood out in the light of the moon. 

When I began working with Thurisaz stave this week, I did not get any energy block from the stave.  Things I found interesting is that, I made my altar tools when working with COG, out of Rocky Mtn. Alder.  It has a bright red bark as it matures.  Alder is the only wood in myth that can be used to bind a witch.  Seeing the Thurisaz stave carved in a frozen Alder tree, made me realize that I have in a sense bound myself from all magical and spiritual workings. 

I also see this rune as a protection stave, very masculine associated with Thor.  This is a man's rune.  So when I write this on my palm and go to sleep, I dream of an old friend as a lover.   What is that, again a sign that I am missing that companionship, safety aspect in my life. 

I do not see this a rune to stay away from as I thought at first.  It is a very powerful stave that is like uncontrollable destruction, that kind of destruction that cannot be controlled.  Right now I am dealing with reprecussions of uncontrollable and controllable circumstances.  There is a lesson in this stave I do not have yet, but unlike most articles I read on this stave, I do not find it frightening and scary, but it is definately a stave to be used with care and respect because it carries with it an energy that is older and stronger than most energies people are used to working with.

God: Thor  (though I have read the true translation means "Frost Giant")
Stone: Sapphire
Element: Fire (though I see this as Water, specifically Ice)
Tree: Blackthorn or Oak 

Further thoughts:  I also see this a balance rune, sometimes you need uncontrollable chaos to come, in order to find balance.  Much of the lore I read has specifically said women should be careful with this rune, which I suspect is the energy most women feel when working with Thurisaz, it is almost like 'Man Medicine' specifically for men, however, I also sense that if one asked, a woman would be able to use this stave with much power.  Since women, especially if defending their children react with emotion then logic, this stave used without some thought behind the work  one wanted to do with it, could cause unchangable destruction. 

I actually really like Thurisaz, it feels much like my ward Eegan, that rests until called upon for help or protection.  It is there when needed, but should be used when other things have failed first. 

Uruz

Uruz

Meaning: Auroch

Stands for: male, strength, steadfast, vitality, wit, healing, foundation

Meditation from Rune Class:

Again I returned to the woodland fire with Zeulu and the Quiet Warrior.  Staring into the fire I seemed to transcend to a place where I was spirit standing face to face with a spirit Auroch.  My forehead rested right abouve his wet nose.  He was huge with horns that spanned the skyline.  We just stood there in this celestial sky almost like we were a constellation.  He was a stable gentle strength, that made me feel safe.  Yet as I stood there I was reminded of the destroyer aspect of a creature so big, and that I am that creature in my own life.  One must be careful when working on a foundation to not sabotage one's fate.  Uruz is a symbol of the sabator archetype, when one is unbalanced.  However, when one, I, can be silent and listen to my inner voice, the right direction is there. 

I began working with the Uruz stave this week of Yule.  The first night I put the stave on my palms, I dreampt of my friend Bobby, someone I haven't spent a lot of time with the last year or so.  In this dream he was a love interest, with whom I felt very save and content.  I also had a job in this dream, a job I kept running from and avoiding because I didn't want to go.  The dream kept going back and forth between Bobby and I spending time together to me needing to go to work but not wanting to. 

When I woke up from this dream I actually felt very content, like I had just woken up in the arms of my love, very protected and safe.  I realized that in my journey to fix myself, and to help the girls get over the death of their father, that having a healthy relationship as in a lover/partner way, has been put on the back burner.  Now I have intentionally done this and I am okay with my decision.  My girls needed me there during these last few years more than I have needed physical partnership.  However I realize I do miss the safety of having someone to just be there when my world feels like it is caving in.  As for the work aspect of the dream, that was easy, I am unhappy with my job and I don't want to be there, but I have a responsibility to provide for the girls and the people at my job depend  on me as well.  Somehow I need to find a balance in my work, a way to like it again.  I am still working with this stave and might have more to write later.  OH, and I realized why Bobby was the male in the dream, he was my steadfast male friend when Bill and I seperated, and he is a friend that I have always felt comfortable and safe with.  He is my Hellboy and always will be.

One thing I find interesting about this stave is that in the meditation, head to head with the celestial auroch, I felt like we were complete, a set of companions.  Skadi is the goddess I have worked with the last five years from Yule to Ostara, and Ulhr, her companion is the God associated with this stave. 

Other things about Uruz:

Gods/Goddess:  Ulhr
Stone: dark blue
Element: Earth
Color: Dark Green/Blue  ( to me this stone is more a celestial or night sky blue illuminated by the stars)
Chakra: third eye/crown/root  (this is how I see the rune)

Fehu

Fehu -
Meaning: Cattle

Stands for:  wealth, prosperity, riches, landed property, mobile property, family, friends, love, kindred

Letter: F

Meditation at Rune Class:

As with many meditations, if they are not guided, I naturally go to a place where I am with my guides.  This time I went to our usual place in the forest, it was winter and there was a big fire with four logs forming a square around the fire.  In this meditaion, Zeulu and the Quiet Warrior was there along , my silver black wolf.  In this place I am a young blond maiden, like in most of my meditations and I am wearing furs.   Thinking of Fehu, I decided to scry in the fire.  As I gazed into the flame, the Fehu symbol hovered in the midst of the flame.  The stave gave off a vibration that was very low seeming to come from the core of the earth, very old, very primal.   As I stared at the stave's image in the fire these words sounded in my mind: responsibility, balance, wisdom, knowledge. 

responsibility:  to make and maintain wealth
balance: what to keep, what to give
wisdom: it takes wisdom to find wealth
knowledge: takes knowledge to keep wealth, not making same mistakes


I worked with the Fehu stave for a week painting in on the palms of my hands everynight before I went to sleep.  I slept very content when I had the stave on my hands.  It gives an energy of security, safety, grounding. 

Wealth is the key to this stave, but not monetary wealth.  While I struggle to balance my ability to use money wisely, to get myself out of the financial holes I have created for myself, when I lay at night and watch my daughters sleep, when we are together with the fire in the pellet stove glowing, surrounded by the serenity of the mountains, I am the wealthiest woman alive.  When I think of the friends I have that are my Kindred, I am wealthier than the richest person on this earth.  My wealth does not lie in the monetary, physical possessions I seemingly throw my money away at, my wealth is where I live. 

I have also started to use this stave daily in my life.  I have made a Fehu drawer in one of my magical cabinets, a place to store wealth for a rainy day.  I print out my receivables list at work and place the Fehu stave on the list to start a positive cash flow swing at work.  I also have started a Mimir Well on my Tyr altar, where I have place the first four staves I am working with, in order to have them stay in my memory. 

This is the first time in working with any tool that is considered a divination tool, that I have connected with the tool.  And they MEAN something to me.   This confirms that right now, I have found the fork in my path I am supposed to be on. 


Other notes to remember on Fehu:

God/Goddess:  Freya
Stone: Amber
Element: Fire and Earth
Polarity: Female
Color: Light Red
Chakra:  I would associate this with the root chakra, because wealth is all about tribe.

Dark Time

I meant to write in this blog a lot, but as it turns out, time is not my friend, I have not time it seems for myself.  I feel like I have no time for me, for magic, for anything.  Yet, I have discovered a whole lot about myself during this time of self.  I stated I believe in an earlier post about feeling lost and trying to discover myself again, and I had traced it back I think to the incident in February.  Fact I discovered that since Bill killed himself, that is when I lost me.  I tried ,conform myself to accomodate so many people, tried to take care of too many people, tried to a savior to people who didn't ask to be saved.  Thus putting myself into finacial peril, which I am trying to pull myself out of. 

So what have I discovered?  Driving home from the Witch's Ball, talking to the Gods, it was one word that kept penetrating the darkness of the night.  Resentments.   Now I had to take time to think about that, because I swore that in my previous workings I had worked on my resentments with Bill, my mother, my father, my step father, etc.  Fact was I had truthfully worked on my resentments towards them, what has been harboring inside, that unfaced demon was the resentments toward myself for the situations I have allowed myself to be in or actually put myself into. 

Bill- okay, so I have dealt with the fact that Bill killed himself, left the girls for me to help put back together.  I get less angry each time they break down and miss him and feel more sympathetic towards him for what  he is missing.  So what was the resentment:  taking on the responsibility to take care of everyone like Bill told me to in his suicide letter.  No one asked me to take the responsibility, I did it on my own because I felt responsible to take care of everyone, because that is what Hope does, she takes care of everyone.   NO ONE asked me to do this when Bill died, I chose to do it, because of some fucked up sense of loyalty to Bill.  I really only have to be responsible for myself, Emily and Ashley.  Joy is an adult, perfectly capable of taking care of herself and her sons.  I am not their God, so why did I try to set myself up as that.  So I could be resentful afterwards.  I even realized I stopped getting tattoo's, and went to a mainstream haircut and color in order to conform to a normalcy Bill always pushed me towards to give the girls some normalcy.  Not only do the girls not care, they don't like the soccer mom look, they liked me the way I was.  NO ONE asked me to change, I did it because....I don't know, but I was resentful over it. 

My Mom-  I have come to accept my mother is not a healthy woman, in mind or body.  She is the child, I am the adult and it has been that way since I was young.  I know she really has no clue she puts me in the positions she does, I do not believe she is capable of understanding.   I have avoided going over to see her because while it is a great mini vacation get away for Emily and Ashley, it is a lot of hard work for me, physically and emotionally to deal with my mother.  She needs me in a way I am not capable of giving her.  I cannot put her before my girls, and while she says she wouldn't ask that, in her moments or episodes, whatever you want to call them, she has done exactly that.  We have found out that her heart condition is worse, and her kidneys are failing and there is really nothing more the Drs can do for her.  SO she is going to die soon, yet another funeral I will have to pay for with money I really do not have.  But that is really a technicality I can work around.  I realized that when my mom passes, my family will consist of me and the girls.  Bills family is very into themselves, the live on the west coast and have their own lives to live.  My mom's family, well I am the black sheep they wrote off a long time ago.  I was so resentful over everything for so long, and now I realize if there is a resentment, it is how I allowed my family to affect me when everything happened with my mom.  And I simply have let that one go.

I resent my job.  Or, I don't like the inequality of my job, the position I have been put into in situations I cannot control, nor do I dictate, I simply push the paperwork.  My boss is a great man, yet a bigoted chauvanistic prick.  He would do anything for me if I needed help, but until I grow a penis, I will never be put on the same playing field as the rest of them.   My job make me unhappy and I will give myself until Samhain next year for it to improve, or I will look for another job. 

Writing this down does not seem like these resentments are/were that big.  But the night they smacked me in the head, the resentment towards myself for my actions in the events in my life, they were HUGE. 

I also realized that spiritually I haven't only been lost, I have been non existent.  Going through the motions like a Sunday Christian.  I feel like someone not themselves.  Why?  Because I lost hope in who I was.  Now I am taking the steps to move back into that aspect of me.  Starting with taking Rune Class with the Mjolnir Kindred and with Sin Odinson.  We started last Sunday going over the first four staves of te Elder Futhark .  This is bringing me back to where I was, and I know I will go far passed that person as time goes forward.  I am working with one Rune per week.  I will post on each rune as I work thorugh them. 

I would write more but sleep is calling me and that is a bedfellow I don't here beckoning often.  Good night to all on this Mothers Night.

S

Defined - accountability

In no way was my poem yesterday meant to be a victim poem, more of a mirror to look at as I progress on the evolution I seek.  I do believe I am an empowered woman, I am not feeling weak or lost like I was a month or so ago.  I am realizing may things about myself, the lies I buy into, the hypocrascy I have embraced disguised in my dianic path.  I do believe that part of my mistrust has been a survival instinct to protect from repeating past decisions, however, I am guilty of steroeotyping men into a lump catagory that is just as unfair and unjust what I am working to combat as a woman.  I am asking questions in this blog, not to make myself a victim of my circumstance, but more to hold myself to a higher accountability than where I have held myself before.

And women, as a gender are just as guilty of stereotyping ourselves in the words we say, the looks we give, our own judgements of others actions.  How often have you heard of a sexual assault, or harrasment happening and the words are said, well if she wouldn't have dressed like that, if she wasn't such a flirt, if she wasn't such a lush.  We look at other women and deem them slut, whore, bitch because of things other people have said, a preconception because of underlying insecurities and jealousy.

It is said we make the examples for our children.  Wow, my oldest is now in 7th grade, and already girls in her class are being labeled as slut, easy, and whore.  Many of these girls I know and the label is far from the truth, yet sad because if one person says it, they all jump on.  I have had to have the discussion with my children, about being careful of labels, because unfortunately, who you hang around with, will label you for your whole high school years.  I know the stories of these girls, I know they are not what they are labeled, I know why people are labeling them, and I tying to protect my own daughters being labeled, yet trying to teach them not to label.  Yet I as I talk to them, I recall my own labeling of women in the past, of calling them a slut and whore, annd then remembered the feelings of being called those words myself.

I have heard myself answer my daughters when they question the behavior of the boys their age with comments like, " well, they are boys and boys are stupid,"  " men are dogs", "well that is a man for you."  How can I teach my chidren not to prejudge when I have already prejudge someone based on gender or perception.

I wrote in my poem, DEFINED, how I alllowed words to define me, but in reading that I have to ask, how am I defining my daughters?

Mind Purge by Poetry

Defined

I am an empowered woman

Or so I have told myself,

But how empowered can I be if

I allow the actions of others define

Who I trust?

I was told as a child the man was head of the household,

He was to provide and protect the family he created,

And the man who chose to be my father,

Who was a mirror image of God on Sunday

And lied and cheated on my mother on Monday

Left when I was 9 to create a new family that fit his need better.

This was the example of what a man was supposed to be?

The man child who took in my broken mother

After her knight in shining armorer abandoned her,

More my age than hers, threw tantrums like a child

With the strength of a man, and the lust of a teenager

Who tried to turn his attentions towards me when she

Could no longer fulfill them, but ran like the child he was

When I protected myself with magic and blade,

Another example of what a man was supposed to be?

For mates I chose the abusive manipulative men,

Talking, breathing replicas of my fathers

Whose faces I associate with the words and wounds

Burned into my memory like a branded piece of property

No longer owner of my own identity, defined by

Their voices as they rewrote my character with adjectives of

Worthless, stupid, weak, bitch, idiot, useless, mindless,

Lazy, dumb, disrespectful, disobedient, whore……

And the more I tried to become who they wanted

The more I disappointed because no change was ever enough

For the man who was supposed to love me.

I contorted and twisted trying to conform into the vision presented

Of the perfection of the puppet mate they sought,

An actress compromising for the starring role,

Only to find my heart yanked out of my chest,

Causing a pain so deep that my emotions went numb

With departing words like, “My life sucks because you breathe air,”

Or the tender kiss goodbye with promises of tomorrow,

As he knowingly walked into the arms of another,

While I sat in confused bewilderment…what about me?

I found myself in Goddess, in fellowship with women

Who were just as lost and broken as I,

Proclaiming our injustices at the hands of man,

Blaming God and church, preacher and Father

For taking our identity away, defiling our womanhood,

Hating them for hating us,

Claiming we were accountable for ourselves

But using “men” as the bane of our existence.

Finding comfort in loveless sex singing,

“all acts of love and pleasure are her ritual”

Looking for love but sabotaging our own efforts,

Forgiving them in words but harboring hatred in our hearts

Because we, I , could not trust myself to trust a man.

I am an empowered woman?

How can I claim a Priestesshood in Her name,

If I place her creation, man, lower than myself by not trusting,

but prejudging because of gender?

How empowered can I be, if I continue

To allow the words of the past to define my present?

Silver Wind Woman

11.12.11

Sparkyisfourty@yahoo.com???

I have known that this year that when that this time of inward travel was going to be deep and difficult.  This whole past year I have been lost and confused.  I no longer felt comfortable in Of the Goddess Sisterhood, I have felt like it was not my place, the path of the Dianic Witch seemed foreign and unwelcoming.  I did not know why.  I decided that it was okay to not understand for awhile, it was okay to be uncomfortable and it was okay to walk away.  I felt the need to explore a different way of thinking, a need to find balance and in my deepest knowing I new I had to bring the God aspect into my life.  So in this period of not understanding the wall I felt in OGST, I began to read and research the Gods of different pantheons.

In September I decided that the only Gods I was drawn to were the Norse ones.  Uncomfortable to change from Dianic to Heathen but feeling right at the same time.  I spent the next month and a half studying Odin, Thor, Ulhr and Tyr.   Tyr was the one that called.  Mid October comes and I go to COVA, Colorado Organization of Victim Assistance.  Sat through classes on death notifications and Sexual Assault Psychology, Protective Orders all interesting, seemingly irrelavent to my spiritual path.  It was a great experience.

The Witches Ball comes, I go with my sister Sarajane and we talked about various things including my journey of the year.  We talked about the Goddesses I worked with and Ishtar was brought up.  She who called me, claimed me as her own.  I told Sarajane how nothing I had planned on doing this past year had happened, and Sarajane tells me how she could see Ishtar stepping back allowing me seach my God, because she new I could not grow until I understood the male side of my path, that Divine God Energy. 

We went to the ball, I left early.  On the way home, the veil opened and realization after realization hit me.  Last February I invited a friend of mine into OTGS, a friend who was experienced in Drawing Down.  She did a Drawing Down for the circle, many of the women on OTGS are solitary, do not do the public rituals and had never experienced a Drawing Down before.  The night progressed, I went last.  The first part of the message was a divine message, I still remember the words, but somewhere in the midst of this message the energy shifted, the Divine Energy left and the message became personal.  It was a message of this friends love for me and how much she loved me, how my daughters needed to be aroud her.  I let her talk and kept a straight face for the rest of the women in OTGS.  Inwardly I was pissed, totally livid.  After that incident, my daily communion with Goddess ceased, I stopped going to Circle, I aligned myself with other people.  I began to question the Dianic path, how so many Dianic circles are "man haters."  I don't hate men, I am not a lesbian, I am not a Femi Nazi.  The exclusion of men in Goddess worship, even in Wicca, though it is supposedly about balance it is Goddess heavy, the Gods are sexual and fluffy.  The is unbalance in a supposedly balanced path.  I found myself questioning more than I was finding answers. 

  Remembering this incident reminded me of an exercise we did in one of my COVA Classes.  It was an exercise that basically allowed us a glimpse of what a rape victim goes through.  And I realized that in my mind, this friend had violated the sacred space I held dear, it was no longer my safe place, thus I shut myself away from it, and removed myself from the circle. I made a vow right then to reclaim my sacred space and to reclaim my spiritual path.

So I set up new altars, began daily moments remembering Goddess and the vow of Service I claimed when I recieved my 3rd Degree.  I also began working with Tyr, in the way I knew as I read and research daily more traditional ways to work with Tyr.

The veil is still thin, there are spirits still wondering and close, I can feel it in the air.  Yesterday I sit down to sign into Facebook and Bill's email address pops up on the screen.  It made me feel weird and I had to think about it.  I asked last night before I went to sleep for insight.  The insight did not come in a dream, it first began to become clear in an email I recieved from an old friend of mine who asked:
 "Question..
Are you in a relationship at this time? When was the last time you were in a serious, real give and take, healthy relationship with a man?
Yes, there is a reason for the question. heehee..no trickery here."

Bills email address, these questions...I realized how much resentment I have harbored silently inside towards Bill.  Everytime the girls have a breakdown, act out because they miss their dad.  When they have Dads Week at school, and they don't have a dad to go with them.   How much I resent the the financial situation I have left because of him and people promising to help pay the bills but never actually helping. 

I begin to realize, I am drawn to work with Tyr to learn healthy interaction with men. Why Tyr, because he is just, fair, sacrificing, and wise.    I have to really analyse my resentments towards Bill and get rid of them. If I am to have a healthy relationship with men, I have to learn to trust myself in trusting men.  If I cannot trust, how will my girls ever learn to trust. 

Then I get an email from my friend who sent me the question.  I won't go into the email other than something she wrote, " We got to talking about men and how as a Dianic I've been accused of "man hating". The strangest thing happened was that I was explaining to her that I didn't hate men at all. In no way shape or form but I don't know...she said what do you mean you dont' know ...I said you know, it's not so much I hate them but rather I'm like you know, terrified of them. "

Which is exactly part of the realization that came to me this morning.  I do believe that working with Tyr in the spiritual, and seeking being around a Kindred, are steps necessary for me to heal, to get rid of resentments and to no longer be terrified of men, but to live with them in harmony and balance.  This is a harmony and balance I need to find within myself, and find in the physical world I live. 

The Bank of God

In 2004 when I had reached an absolute bottom in my life, I sought comfort in the one thing I thought could count on, back to church to find God.  So I went to a church, they happened to be having  a revival.  There were preachers there I had grown up with, Rod Parsley, Creflo Dollar and I was excited to hear them.  The first day, the sermon was about giving to the church and God would bless me.  The next night the sermon was about giving a double tithe to receive double back.  Third night I heard about how if I would give in faith all my needs would be met.  Well I was not in need of money, I was quite capable of working and taking care of myself what I needed was to know the broken heart and soul was loved and could recover from the ordeal that had caused the problem.  I walked out of the church and swore I would never go again, because if all those preachers wanted was money then the God I new was no longer in the church.

The other morning I woke up after falling asleep with the TV on to catch a paid for Church show that happened to be Rod Parsley's church.  And again, the sermon was about giving to the church to get back, this preacher (not Rod Parsley) even went so far to say that if people would give in the next specified amount of time, that God would give them back a 1000 fold return.  Really, 1000 times the investment is a pretty big promise of a mortal man to guarantee an Omnipresent being like God is promising. 

At first this show made me mad, I thought of Jesus and the money changers in front of the temple and how he got mad and destroyed thier tables.  I thought of how the church becoming secular was not a place of worship and fellowship like our anscestors wanted so long ago.  It has become The Bank of God, where people deposit their money based on empty promises by the preachers who would rather live off of the money of the people than to teach about love and compassion.  These religion brokers push greed, hypocrisy and hate.

But instead of being mad, this whole thing just makes me sad.  What about all the people who believe in God who are good honest Christians who are descent to other people.  Their God has made into something he was not.  Then I began to think about our country, Occupy Wall Street, and the correlation between The Corporations and The Church.  In both people are disposable, just faces with no names.  I think when we put "In God we Trust" on our money back in the 50's, a self fulfilling prophecy was started, but the God of money replaced the God of the people.