By Fire Well and Tree

  Special guest appearance by Taco towards the back  I am not 100 percent sure how I came to be so...YULE!!!  When I first became pagan, I felt like I was all about the Samhain, the spooky. And heck, yeah, I still love it.  But somehow Yule took hold and now I plan Yule Lad visit to my grove's kids, and Solstice eve vigils, and a Yule Along for the 12 days, and then Twelfth Night sumble.... Anyway, here we are again. The last two years there's been Yule-A-Long and Yule Lads, but that's it.  In 2020, we tried to have a Zoom Twelfth Night. I get that Zoom has been a godsend for many, and we certainly used similar technology (Blackboard Collaborate), but as much as they can help people with some anxieties, they do the exact opposite for mine. So in 2021 I didn't even bother, and was mostly too full of Seasonal Affective Disorder to even care. We didn't even decorate those two years.   BUT, this year is all... well, different. Not normal, but close. (I des...

 The three or four of you that may read this somewhat regularly may already know that I'm a flame tender for Bridhe (via  here, specifically ).  I have of course, lost my log-in information, and I'm not 100% certain what my "number" is, but I programmed my calendar with it years ago, and get a reminder every 20 days, so.... AT some point, I wanted to honor other deities, those who I feel particularly devoted to.  I also became interested in being a bit more Celtic-focused in general, so was reading Celtic Recon stuff (the aforementioned Celtic Ritual/Apple Branch by Kondratiev was central).  I was (re) introduced to the four Celtic treasures: Sword of Nuada, Spear of Lugh, Cauldron of the Dagda, and Stone of Destiny.  I've set up our temple room with shrines in the four corners for each of these things; Morrigan's shrine is with my symbol of the Stone.  I'm going to cut the roughly five year tale of how I've thought of these things and cut to the way I...

Wounded I hung on a wind-swept gallows For nine long nights, Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odin, Offered, myself to myself I scarcely believed the words left my lips.  I was meditating.  I was at a coven gathering, where we were experimenting with different kinds of recorded music and meditation or trance.  At the time, I wasn't very good at that, but through this exercise I discovered that simple music (a single Asian flute) works best, and I found myself on Yggdrasil.  I decided, in my meditative mind, to head towards Alfheim, having been told in a seidhr that I should sit with Freyr for a while.  On my way, there was a man hanging, upside down.  As I approached, he begged me for some water.  There was a bucket with a silver ladle nearby, and I reached down to get some water, I stopped. Me:  You aren't supposed to have this. Himself:  Please.... It was then that I quoted the above back to him and then continued. ...