The Kindred of Ravenswood
Our Faith Eddas and Sagas Asatru Links E-Mail the Godhi I awoke and looked over at the clock on the nightstand. "2:03 a.m.," it blared at me with its green face. I looked over to my wife, who was sound asleep. Woman... I must have her now. I am a man possessed. We made love, a passionate, urgent love. We both fell asleep exhausted.
My alarm went off at 5:00 a.m., as usual. I awoke with a start to the blaring of the radio that I normally sleep through. I could feel my hot blood coursing through my veins. The smell of everything around me was somehow noticeable, as though this was the first time I had ever smelled anything. I was wired; this was atypical considering the night's activity and the fact that it was Friday morning. My wife was sound asleep, and I thought it best to leave her be. I took a shower and got ready for work, my vision somehow tunneled to an unknown task.
As I drive to work each day, I normally listen to a morning radio talk show; but this day I found its paltry prattle annoying. I turned it off and listened to the hum of the car in the morning rays. Nothing was around me. I sensed only void, interrupted only by autonomous beings that whizzed by in cars, dead to the world, soulless, and stupid. Not stupid like cattle, but more like sheep, as though they not only were ignorant of their own existence, but unaware of the peril they lie in merely by being in my field of view. I checked myself from plotting their demise and sped on.
I arrived at work to find only myself there. As other people started showing up, they occasionally stuck their heads into my office to spout out meaningless morning pleasantries. I viewed this akin to setting a torch into the burrow of a bear, but spared them for their ignorance. They had no meaning to me, and although their demise would have been enjoyable, it might have not been viewed so positively by their kind. I did my best to avoid as many people as I could, giving myself excuses to stroll around outside. I didn't care if anyone noticed I was gone, but I suppose the wights there understood and steered my unwary co-workers clear of my empty office. While on my walks I could commune freely with the landwights there. The told me of the perverse altercations to the land that these feeble humans had done, not even deigning once to ask their permission. It's no wonder that the company is ramming itself into the ground -- then they'll leave and the wights can have back their home. I apologized to them and asked if they would share in my lunch. Near noon we feasted together, and I hoped that that small task could begin to repair the damages.
The wights, in return, kept people out of my way all day and made others who were seeking me leave me alone. My cage is well equipped with an electronic paperweight called a "CAD station" which seems to serve no other purpose than to annoy me. I pushed the buttons in some sequence on its console, moved around a small device attached to it via some umbilical cord, and proceeded to NetSurf while playing solitaire. I wanted to be free, but some nagging thing in the back of may head calling itself a "conscience" told my body to stay there and look busy until 3:30 p.m. Then you can go. I have no record of a single productive thing that I had done that day for the eight-plus hours I was ensnared there, save my communication with the local Vaettir.
I got home and all I wanted was sleep, sex, food, and unbridled killing of worthless things, in any order. Hell, mixing any of them would have been fun, too. I opted for the first, engaging in the third when my wife returned, and completely missing the other two. I went to bed and the world went black.
I woke up at my usual time on Saturday morning, about 9:00 a.m. I felt like I had just been possessed for the last 36 hours, merely a shell of a man housing some raging spirit. Freyfaxi had come – one of the most important blóts to a Freyrsgoði-to-be, this being my first Freyfaxi as a heathen. It was as though opening my heart and soul to the gods and to my heritage had broken open the floodgates, and it took nine months for the tidal wave to hit me. Perhaps the timing of nine months is a reminder of a fetal period, one of change, and one of rebirth. I kept all of these possible meanings in mind while I prepared for the blót in the usual fashion, nothing peculiar today. No emotional roller-coaster, no more possession, no loss of control. All I was left with was the most focus I have ever felt, the most awareness I have ever felt, and the most energized I have ever felt. Nature has been, as it always is, and always will be, reborn. The cycle has begun.
The Kindred of Ravenswood
Our Faith Eddas and Sagas Asatru Links E-Mail the Godhi