Author: michael raven

  • reads | Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey

    I know… As usual, I am late to the party. To be fair, however, when I originally read the first book in The Expanse series, I was hardly in the right mindset to continue on with the series. It had been a struggle to read any novels at the time. Proof of which is that I only had vague recollections of the plot involved. I was in full-distraction mode when it came to reading anything offline.

    At the time I had planned to continue reading the next book, but I think I was put off by the wait times for a library copy or the cost, or both. I recently signed up for Kindle Unlimited and was both surprised and pleased to see the whole series of books were available to borrow.

    As I said, my head was someplace else when I read the first book back in 2022, so I reread it to refresh my memory and I’m glad I did.

    The Expanse series, both books and television series based on the books, have been very popular with readers and viewers across the globe. If the first book is any indication, there is a good reason for its popularity, as it tells a fairly “ripping yarn” that doesn’t slow down enough to avoid the occasional bouts of hypoxia. But in a good way.

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  • casting runes — 28dec25

    dagaz
    i prefer the company of shadows
    not knowing the wolf for dog
    i bare neck, hoping for a nip

    lack of certainty
    stokes midnight's flicking flame

    A rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.

    Today’s rune is dagaz, which has been translated as “daybreak”, that transitional moment between night and day. By extension, it might also be interpreted as “twilight” and is representative of liminality, transformation, the space between worlds, and suggests walking in both the material world and otherworld.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.

  • falling still

    silence falling in white
    were i made of sterner stuff
    i might sit in stillness outside
    until it covered me whole

  • Drama

    And then there is that dire exasperation when you realize that you did not, in fact, manage to escape family manufactured drama for the first year in forever when your mother refuses to accept the word “No” as a valid answer when someone else cancels a function that nobody wants to go to and she demands you accommodate the new schedule that the other party demands be met even though there is no one particularly interested in said event.

    “But the girls need this meeting with second cousins they haven’t played with in four years and they have nothing in common with while their father drinks himself stupid and you are forced to put up with his antics for four hours. What do you mean that the girls return to school the next morning after a break where they’ve both been sick and they should really rest up beforehand and not have a late night?”

    Yes, everyone talks in run on sentences in this family when operating on high drama…

    Of course they are still invited to her house so my mother can turn on the Catholic guilt trip for my benefit at the last minute… You know, because it’s happening anyway.

    And people wonder why I hate family gatherings. Huh.

  • casting runes — 27dec25

    ingwaz
    let me drift back to
    dreaming of you
    or someone like you
    sowing acorns behind
    the veil of dreams

    A rune poem, based on an Elder Futhark rune selected at random.

    Today’s rune is ingwaz, a rune named after the god Ing or Freyr. It is representative of a channeled energy or transformational process. It is also be seen as the male component of life, and therefore a symbol of sexual passions and the contributed “seed” of life (and, therefore, an aspect of one’s ancestral ørlǫg, or fate/destiny). Some interpretations conceive the rune as a symbol of darkness, solitude or dreaming.

    Please visit my Elder Futhark pages at sceadugenga.com for additional interpretations of the runes based on multiple references and personal reflection.