Litha Greetings

Today is the longest day of the year,
and the shortest night of the year is near.
From this time one, the days become shorter and shorter.
From this time on, the nights become longer and longer.
Summer solstice.

Photo Credit: www.sodahead.com/question/90797/

Hexennacht Greetings

My tongue wants to say "Happy Hexennacht," because it's alliterative. Then my mind tells my tongue, "But it's really not a happy day." Tomorrow will be happy, though, because the darkness tonight ushers in tomorrow's spring.

Our kindred will be celebrating tomorrow, because I teach Wednesday evenings.

On high holidays, we work seidhr. As I've mentioned before, this is a community rite, and I am including those on tribe in our extended community of wights.

If you would like us to journey for you, please send me your query no later than sundown Thursday, May 1 (CST). If you would like to send a message privately, you can contact me at serpent.seidkona@yahoo.com.

A word of advice about seidhr questions: They work best of put in the form of poetry. Not rhymes, but allusive language. The language of seidhr is poetry.

Photo credit: freizeitpark-welt.de/freizei...tart.php

Weaving Stinging Thorns

For seven years, she wove the stinging thorns.
For seven years, he pleaded for a word.
He might have waited 'till she answered, "Yes,"
but he did not and he took her to his bed.
She did not dislike the King, but he might have waited
until her self-appointed task had been completed.

For seven years, she wove the stinging thorns.
For seven years, they pleaded for a sound.
She did not speak. They read into her silence
a witch's spells and sentenced her to drown.
Sill weaving, weaving still the stinging thorns,
she did not stop until they'd led her to the shore.

For seven years, she wove the stinging thorns.
For seven yeras, they'd waited on the water,
her seven brothers, enchanted in the form
of swans, looked up to see the crowd that brought her.
She tossed the woven cloaks into the air,
and then the King's men caught her hands to bind her.

For seven years, she wove the stinging thorns.
She wove her brothers cloaks to change their form
from swans with strong feathered wings
to seven men with strong young limbs.
Flying, they caught the cloaks and slipped them on.
Feathers and wings transformed to hands and arms

except for one, who returns in the form of a man
retaining one wing in place of an arm and a hand.

For seven years, she wove the stinging thorns.
For seven years, she had maintained her silence.
The King and the King's men -- in their impatience
and in fear of the woman's words that remained unspoken --
had led her to the lake shore before her task could be completed.
Out of fourteen sleeves on seven cloaks, one arm remained unwoven.

Now, one by one, the brothers advance to kiss her hand,
thanking their fair sister for all her heroic hard work
and personal sacrifice resulting in forced marriage -- rape, really --
and a death sentence nearly escaped
in the face of astounding, transformative enchantment.

The last brother, though, the one with the wing,
just can't find it in himself to be grateful and bow.
After all, he's the one condemned to live life as a freak.
What gentlewoman will want him now,
except a desperate one or one with a taste for -- shall we say -- the unusual?
What gentlewoman will want him now?
After all, this is his real life and not some fairy tale.




Photo source: evghoul.bloground.ru/2007/02/

Dragon Mist

Our family has had a difficult time financially since last fall, and our savings are dwindling. We are steadily building our business back up, but this week we took another big hit. Clients that were supposed to pay my husband $30,000 took all the money for themselves. That would have been our income for the next several months.

Right now I do not work outside the home, and I started by doing the practical things first ... working my network, filling out applications, dusting off and polishing up my resume.

Then I journeyed. Usually the wyrm comes for me and takes me where I need to go. This time the wyrm came in the form of a huge dragon blocking my path. It's eyes were looking right at me, and its head was so large it filled my entire field of vision. Then it turned to lead the way. Although it appeared to be waddling awkwardly on land, it moved surprisingly fast and was soon far ahead of me. I followed the track its tail left on the ground until I came to a steep cliff.

Spreading its wings, the dragon flew up to a cave high up in the cliff wall, and I started to climb. At first it seemed as if the climbing would be a prolonged struggle, but in no time I was at the top. Along the way, I had been accompanied for a while by a dark-haired girl child. She was looking down to pick her way up the steep rocky path. When I spoke to her, she lifted her head to respond, and I saw she had a dragon's face. She left me before we reached the top.

When I was standing outside the dragon's lair, all was dark and still inside. Turning, I looked over the side of the cliff into a deep crevasse.

The crevasse filled with mist so that I could not see the bottom.

When I stepped toward the dragon's lair, I found myself floating in the mist over the crevasse. I was floating on my back, clothed only in the mist. When I struggled to get up, I was told to relax .. wait. Over and over again, I struggled to get back to the cliff, only to be told to relax ... wait. Still struggling, I managed to turn over facing down. Instantly the mist cleared, and I found myself plummeting toward the ground. But the mist still clinging to me turned to strong, white swan's wings. Flapping, I rose back up to the mist and turned over on my back, to relax ... and wait. The message changed to relax ... wait ... and don't look down.

The next morning, when I awoke, I kissed my daughter's head as she was eating breakfast and called her "my little dragonlet."

Turning her head up to me, she said, "But people can't be dragons."

"Oh, yes they can," I told her.

My husband had been terribly stressed by bearing the burden of all this financial trouble since last fall and especially this week. But after I told him the story of this journey, he has relaxed.

We keep telling each other now what the dragon of the mist told us. Relax ... wait ... and don't look down.

Of course, I'm continuing to work on the resume and job applications. He's building relationships with new clients, as well.

Relax ... wait ... and don't look down.


Photo credit: www.larsonweb.com/Bctry/Tri...monix2.htm

Battle Hardening - Part 7

As I wrote in personal messages to some of you, life and the springtime called me away from the online community for a few weeks.

But I wanted to let everyone know, we have sent the soap and the magickal spell and the protective enrgy out into the world.

It should be reaching our friend any day now.

If you would take a few moments to wish her well, say a prayer or light a candle for her -- whatever is most meaningful for you in your tradition -- we would appreciate it.

Her name is Becky, and she is stationed in Baghdad.



Photo source: www.mooseyscountrygarden.com/gar...html

Battle Hardening - Part 6

One of our kindred studies rune lore and practices galdr.

After long thought about what just the right bind rune might be to inscribe on the soap, he realized there was a simple answer: the helm of awe.

Of course.

[Illustration Source: upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Awe.PNG]

Battle Hardening - Part 5

Obtaining a diamond was the easy part. Just a little sacrifice of money was involved. Luckily we didn't need quality. It just had to be hard. As a diamond.

Once we'd fired up the alembic and experimented with it, we deposited the gemstone in the pot and proceded to distill it.

We'd done it. Distilled a diamond. Now what?

I was concerned about mailing a vial of liquid through the mail overseas. What if -- after all the trouble we'd gone through -- the vial broke?

And how to apply the diamond distillation?

Briefly we considered suggesting that our friend ingest it. But this is supposed to be battle hardening. We wanted to protect her like a shield. Swallowing the stuff didn't seem right.

You know what we did? Hah! We made soap out of it. Pure, white glycerine soap. No perfumes or additives. Just clean and white and permeated with the power of a diamond. Oh, and for a girly touch, I floated some rhinestones in it.

[Illustration note: my photograph]

Battle Hardening - Part 4

"Distill a diamond."

We finally realized the svartalfar meant exactly that. And we knew nothing about distilling. Come to find out, it's highly regulated everywhere in the United States. To own and operate a still, you have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars and obtain a liquor license.

With one exception. Without a license, we could purchase a small distillation apparatus -- an alembic -- intended for the manufacture of essential oils.

Perfect.

Now all we needed was the diamond.

[Illustration source: alembichealingarts.ca/~alembi...ill.jpg]

Battle Hardening - Part 3

"Distill a diamond."

We wondered and imagined and conjectured at length at all the abstruse metaphysical possibilities this statement might imply.

Until finally I realized ...


[Illustration notes: www.bradleygoughdiamonds.com/pic...jpg]

Battle Hardening - Part 2

So little of the ancient magical art of battle hardening survived in the lore. And certainly there has been no direct transmission of this knowledge from person to person. Which is why we used seidhr to search for what we wished to know.

It was during the seidhr that one of the svartalfar told us that in order to protect someone in battle, we needed "to distill diamonds."

To be continued ...

[Illustration note: detail of early 20th century postcard illustrating a scene from Snow White & the Seven Dwarves]