A Peek

Thankfully, the internet wonkiness only lasted a day or so; unfortunately, I’ve been busy the last couple of days and didn’t get around to updating the blog until now.

Over the past nine months or so, I’ve been working on a book of Norse liturgies and devotionals, the working title of which has been Sunna’s Journey: A Book of Norse Liturgy through the Wheel of the Year. It will cover daily and monthly devotionals, some specialized work, and High Day rites – which will include ritual workings along with stories and poems appropriate to the individual High Day. I’m shooting for publishing around Yule this year and am currently about a quarter of the way done (which is actually a lot farther along than it sounds), but before then, I’ll be making some sneak-peeks available.

The first of which is the following verse-version of the story written for Maitag.

Technical Difficulties

Well, due to some surprise wonkiness with the house’s internet, there won’t be a true update today. If the internet situation gets fixed in the next couple of days, I’ll try to get the post I’d planned for today put up, but it may be another two weeks until he next scheduled update. Sorry. : /

The Root of Many Evils

Dove-tailing with the last entry, at one point during the documentary Collapse, the unseen interviewer asks Michael C. Ruppert about his own religious beliefs after Ruppert comments that the major world religions will be judged on their merits should we start making the decline from peak oil production to industrial collapse. Ruppert responds somewhat enigmatically, simply quoting the first sentence of 1 Timothy 6:10:

“For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. “

“Collapse” & Sustainability

Recently, I watched the documentary Collapse on NetFlix.

The film is presented as an interview with a man named Michael C. Ruppert, who was initially approached by the filmmakers due to his connection to CIA drug-dealing in Los Angeles during the late 1970s (Ruppert claims that while working as a detective, he was solicited by his fiancée – who was, apparently, an undercover agent – to help the Agency sell drugs in South Central L.A.; Ruppert states that he refused and then went on to alert whatever authorities would deign listen to him), but was more interested in talking about “peak oil”.

Mothmen, Tulpas, & Deities – Oh My!!

So, apparently there was a recent sighting of the legendary Mothman in Middletown, OH. 

I say “apparently” because the story reeks of BS to me (in fact, it reads like a bad pastiche of Lovecraft), but seeing it got me thinking about tulpas.

On Virtue

“Changes come / Keep your dignity / Take the high road, take it like a man”

– Puscifer, “Momma Sed”

A few years ago I was talking with a friend – commiserating, really, about various craptacular things that were arising within our respective lives at that point – when we started talking about virtue, and the usefulness of being “virtuous”. She told me about doing some channeling-work with another mutual friend, during which she had a conversation with one of the Norns (the Germanic embodiments of the forces of Fate/Time/Destiny; akin to the Greek Moirae), and the Norn imparted a piece of advice along the following lines:

“What’s the point of clinging to virtue? Be as virtuous as you want, the world will still rip away everything you hold most dear. So…what’s the point?”

Clarke’s Third Law

So, a week or so ago I was visiting the fiancée and I was up late surfing channels while trying not to vomit (long-story short: turns out I’d picked up a stomach-bug from her wee-nephew; but, anyway…) and I happened across Louis C.K.’s 2010 special Hilarious on Comedy Central.

I came in at a point where he’s talking about how people in the current generations (his generation and forward) don’t really seem to appreciate technology (warning: video is NSFW due to language), specifically air-travel. He mentions how people complaining about having to wait for 40 minutes on the tarmac for their flight to take off has become an epic tale of woe and hardship nowadays, to which his response is: “What happened then? Did you fly through the air? Like a bird? Incredibly? Did you soar through the clouds impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight?!”

And, I thought to myself: he’s right. And, for some reason, that reminded me of Clarke’s Third Law:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

On Technopaganism

This happened to me one time. For realz.

Or “Why I Like to Play with Gadgets in Ritual”

 

Personally, I’ve always felt more comfortable affecting a modern look in ritual, both in dress and ritual tools. Granted, there’s definitely a good argument for using the stereotypical hooded-robe and Medieval-style tools – as they are currently uncommon objects that impress upon the mind that what is going on is special and not mundane – but I’ve always felt more comfortable in street clothes.

There’s also the fact that I find it fun to figure out ways to use modern implements in ritual. For instance, I have a shorted-out iPod Touch that I use for a scrying device (a “ScryPod”, if you will) in much the same way that Renaissance magicians used a black mirror. Recently, I also bought a Cruz Micro Reader (think the weird love-child of a Kindle and an iPad), which will be used in ritual for liturgical scripts – nestled in a hollowed out book, it would be nicely inconspicuous while also allowing one to keep their place in ritual quite easily.

Life is a River: the Norse meet the Stoics

This week, I attempt to unite the two threads of Norse and Stoic thought and see if something productive comes of it.

1. The River of Life

Life is a River: The Norse meet the Stoics

This week, we look at the Norse conceptions of fate and time, before seeing how they weave in with the Stoics’ thoughts next time.

1. The Vikings