It often feels pretentious to talk about my thoughts around my path towards rewilding. I mean, who do I think I am to turn away from the norms and follow the trail deeper into the woods?
It is also difficult to do so because I have rejected most of the labels people use.
(more…)of godless ways wandering
between gallows gone to grey
the rocky shore's blackwater
framed in deadwood propped
in seaweed and broken oar
waiting for the sluagh's arms
to embrace a heart of coal
the company of ravens and
a host of crows waiting
waiting
waiting
for snows to fall
There’s something appealing about taking up fasting again. I laid awake at my normal lay awake time last night (2.45am to at least 3.30am) contemplating taking up fasting. Not the hardcore fasting where you go for days on end. I’ve already proved to myself that I have that kind of willpower that it takes to pull that off. I lasted 7 days, or maybe it was 10 — I forget — when I was much younger. I actually needed to will myself to get back into eating after that period of time, whichever duration it was.
No, what I’m talking about is something closer to intermittent fasting. I haven’t thought out the details, but I can see limited fasting as a mental and spiritual exercise. Besides, I’m starting to have a hate side of the love/hate relationship with food emerge again.
Or maybe it was the thinking about that summer and autumn in Seattle before returning to Minnesota. Those days, I had to remind myself to eat. Some days I didn’t bother. I was definitely on a “I hate food” binge at the time. Coffee was good. I drank a river of coffee during that time. Smoked quite a few smokes too.
That was all fine and dandy when it was just me living out on my own, but the family would worry about my mental state and health if I approached things that way now, so it would be better to just limit and eliminate some of my food consumption rather than all-out, hardcore fasting.
I’m not sure what I would want to accomplish. I’ve got my eigengrau moods that come more often than they go. And it wouldn’t hurt to rewild my spirit a bit. A touch of hunger has a way of bringing out the feral.
Maybe I can fast out the funk?
There, a title for this post — catchy and topical. Just the kind of thing SEO managers love.
Have you fasted? Any particular reason for doing so if you have? Do you think it is weird and unhealthy? Comment away!
I walked the beaded hallways red with you and you did not see, not really. Yes yes that’s very beautiful you said as we walked not the beauty of buckskin and ruddy skin. You saw only the patterned beads.
You did not hear the heartbeat drums causing the red hallways to thrum and pulse as you raced towards the light, making sure you could say you had experienced it all for yourself, but you did not hear, nor see.
You did not feel their blood on your skin, nor the sweat, nor the tears. You said you knew it all, had read it in a book you couldn’t recall the title of, nor author. And you pulled me along, not letting me linger to “feel the feels”. You told me you would find the book in the library for me so I could feel.
I reached for the medicine up in the night, but you bound me to prevent “my escape”.
I spoke to ravens and stones.
You just stared at me.
sun and shadow
dancing the bones
between the tonights
laid over growing
groundcover dark
within the wode
acorn man mad they
call his wanders
under oak over stone
pond water mirrors
his autumn ways
hey hey they call of above
do not walk yourself lost
black laughter rising
he laughs along
wanderwalking the wode
acorn man disguised
It’s time to be off, they said.
There was not much left of the once-long stick I had been using to poke at the dying embers for a spell. Each time I poked, bright orange sparks would jump from the rippling ruby coals. For no particular reason, doing so brought me a flash of joy.
I have always been a firebug. Maybe that was why.
I turned to Raven, their feathers ruddy in the glow of the remains of my campfire. Off where? I asked.
You know, they said.
(more…)sitting the red dirt
casting needle bone raw
hey fox, ho owl
what tales do winds tell?
given to ghost on promise
tied leather, wrapped lace
turning on bright flame
if the memory serves you
well
sitting the red dirt
between pine and swell
hey owl, ho fox with
promises winds tell
When I think too much, these are the kinds of thinks I think about. I would not blame someone for stepping slowly backwards after reading this blast of questions. [MR]
What is the purpose of ritual? What makes it an apparent requirement for spiritual practice? Is it an actual requirement or is it perpetuation based on tradition?
What is the purpose of ritual tools? Are they actually necessary to evoke/invoke spirits or deity? Again, are they perpetuated due to that hobgoblin, tradition?
When you practice your beliefs (faith, if you prefer), to you go forth or call in? Do you seek to empty, seek to fill or is this a null question with a null response?
Is it faith? Or is it gnosis?
i smudge space most days
inviting spirits to my smoke at
campfires within indoor plains
for no reason at all
but to give them space to
rest their weary before
they carry on & then on