​A Very Pretentious Title: Lost Teachings of the Runes
Does the title of my book imply that the book holds the lost teachings? Or does it perhaps merely posit the idea that there are lost teachings and therefore invite the reader to go on a personal search?
My original title was Beyond The Horizon, Beneath Our Feet.
The publisher didn't like it, didn't think it would sell.
The publisher had the final say, so Lost Teachings it was/is.
Just wondering, pondering.
Observations and variations on a recent review of the book and subsequent comments.
Adherence to and reliance upon what is historically written holds value, and yet at the same time it can be quite limiting and myopic, not unlike depending solely upon the Bible for our understanding of history.
History is always a matter of perspective, often written by the victors, often second-hand accounts related by observers, not participants and in the case of spiritual matters, non-believers.
It is prudent and wise to guard against the tendency of monotheism so prevalent in Odinism. Our ancestors were animists, polytheists. To be sure, Odin speaks to some sharing what he knows, and is that not his personal interpretation? Hela speaks to others, from a different place, from her perspective.
As ancient, sentient, vibrational beings, the runes speak for themselves, sometimes through the gods, sometimes through the giants. But why would we believe that it is always necessary to have an intermediary? Sharing our own personal and unique experiences may not be a cause for confusion but rather encourage others to value and explore more deeply their own relationships and connections.
And is confusion a problem or a benefit?
Were the rune poems written as memory aids?
Does their order or sequence serve the same purpose?
Asking different questions allows for seeking different answers.
Perhaps the answer is the question. 
​
 …Runes you will find, and readable staves, 
Very strong staves, 
Very stout staves, 
Staves that Bolthor stained, 
Made by mighty powers, 
Graven by the prophetic god, 
For the gods by Odhinn, for the elves by Dain, 
By Dvalin, too, for the dwarves, 
By Asvid for the hateful giants, 
And some I carved myself… 
(excerpt from W. H .Auden & P. B. Taylor Translation of the Havamal) 

​Whatever writings I leave behind
destroy quickly.
Do not read
do not leaf through 
for possible glimpses of my state of mind.
 
There will be much I leave unfinished 
as would be the case for anyone who dies 
while still living
I longed to travel more 
to Scotland
to live among the stones
the cobbles
the cottages
those sentinels standing on the mounds and in the fields
the mist and drizzle
gray
forlorn
remembering
rosy cheeks and wisps of hair
droplets of fog clinging to each errant strand
the coarse woolen weave of vest and shawl 
with hammered brooch
the coach with horse breath and whinny
snort and steam rising up from heated flank
wind gusts perfumed by bracken 
and bird calls from loch and heather
of hearths fragrant with peat and broth
hand me in
please
to the carriage. 
I shall not be wretched twice.
 
There is nothing to be done. 
Life too quickly ended without time enough to dream.
Longing for desire in the distance.
 
It is dusk now 
or dawn. 
The twilight is the in between.
These letters are not from Mama.
Rather from a lover.

Recently a woman who is learning more about her ancestors and the runes made a decision to leave a group she had been quite active in. She felt that continuing to be a part of the group was no longer in harmony with who she was becoming and the relationship she was developing with her own ancestral heritage.
Once she communicated her decision to leave she felt called by the shape of the rune Nauthiz. 
“I drew Nauthiz. Wasn't sure of its name...I'm still working on identifying them all...but I drew it immediately, then looked up which one it was in your book.”
Page 253 in Lost Teachings of the Runes-Northern Mysteries and the Wheel of Life.
“I read, ‘Just because something is challenging (boy has it been), difficult or requires effort is not an indication that it is not meant to be. Somethings flow with ease. Others require friction.’” 
She started seeing Nauthiz a lot in her mind, closing her eyes, even while meditating before falling asleep.
“I dreamt of a cave...it was up a big hill, and there were four of us, climbing this hill to get into this cave. I hadn't reached it yet. I'm not sure if I was trying to but couldn't get up that last bit of hill, or if I was just watching others climb up to it. Two of the people had reached it, were inside and I watched it collapse. The roof completely fell in, crushing them. Total revelation as I'm writing this now...there are three main people in the group I left and me. I was still climbing and the third person wasn’t quite inside the cave, but almost.
I am unsettled still today...just extra energy...what am I doing? What is happening...what is going on, why am I so...I just can't even describe the feeling, almost lost but not quite? 
So I picked up your book to re-read Nauthiz again. And it's amazing how different words stick out each time you read one page of words. Today I read...'your friction sparks ancestral memory...Our hunger for remembering the voice of our Mother Tongue is the need that calls us forth from the cave of forgetting.’ Holy cheezits. Cave in my dream? Cave reference in Nauthiz... Nauthiz is REALLY speaking to me lately.”
 
I love the rune beings, the unseen ones, the ancestors. They are alive and vibrating and calling us forth to remember who we are and where we come from.

And how long will you wear the mask?
Just a question.
And when you remove it what will you die from?
And now that you are afraid to speak, perhaps you can no longer can speak.
 
The sound of words disappears and the only things left are the signs taped on windows and glued to the doors and nailed on lampposts.
We are reduced to the level of needing to be told how to behave, how to enter a shop, how to line up, how to keep distance, how to not touch, to not breathe, to not…
We are the packaging with the warning labels.
The bottle in the sealed box with the plastic sealed lid with a foil covering of fear over the opening, the don’t try this at home alone, this is not a toy, hot liquids burn, contents may be cancer causing.
And what do you intend to die from?
 
We regret to inform you that due to the epidemic of heart disease it is now the law that everyone is required to have a pace maker implanted in their body and every home shall have a monitor designed to record every heart beat or non beat, a monitor that remotely controls the heart, speeds it up, slows it down and everyone shall forever and ever be dependent on the system to supply batteries to keep the pace maker working.
Or not.
 
And what do you think you will die from, with the implant, with the mask still on?
How long has it been?
Have you forgotten that life is a risk that no one survives?
 
And they promised the vaccine would be the miracle, the end all, the be all and that this winter or the next winter would finally be the winter when the enemy would disappear because the ultimate vaccine had finally been made and you got injected and you died anyway, with your mask on, and the Xs taped on the floor and the arrows painted on the ground, the Xs and Os on the tables and chairs, on the bus seats, with the masks on in the city the governor decreed was forbidden.
And how long did you wear the mask?
Just a question.
 
Did you live so long with the mask that it grew onto your face and became part of you and you forgot that once you were wearing it but now it is wearing you? 
And you stayed inside behind Plexiglas and shields and didn’t hug your grandma and you died anyway.
With the mask on.
Because fearing death you forgot to live.
But you read all the signs taped on the wall and followed the rules and spied on your friends and tattled on your neighbors.
And you died anyway.
With the mask on.
And what do you believe you died from? 
And how long will you wear the mask?

Update end of November 2020
It is worth noticing that nowhere in the post do I indicate my personal opinion.
​Questions are always good. Ask questions. What do you believe?
The question was and still is, how long will you wear the mask?

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash

​The smell of fear is real.
The air is full of it. It's oozing out of the pores of the masses and quite possibly, it's contagious.
We’re afraid to breathe.
We’re afraid to speak.
We’re afraid of hugging.
We’re afraid to touch.
We’re afraid of our neighbors, and suspicious too.
We’re afraid of our families.
We’re afraid of our shopping bags, library books and our mail.
We’re afraid of a package delivered to our door.
We’re afraid of people walking on the street and children playing in the park.
We’re afraid in our homes and afraid to go outside.

We’re afraid not to be afraid.
We’re suspicious of anyone who isn’t afraid.
​
We’re more likely to die from the stress of constant fear than we are to die from the thing we are told we are supposed to be afraid of.
How do you live?
How do you want to live? 

Poem for the Eihwaz Rune
I come to see
Eihwaz 
sacred yew of life 
growing 
from death 
singing 
songs of renewal 
who will I become 
through willing sacrifice 
self to self 
fearing the end 
I forget to live

It’s easy to make decisions and pass laws when you don’t have to suffer the consequences of your actions or even be affected.
Oregon’s governor won’t lose any income, or her health insurance, during these next 60 days of lock down.
She wasn’t affected by the first 60 days.
She doesn’t face losing her home or her business or her sanity trying to home school children who can’t play outside.
The French aristocracy inherited their positions of power and control over the masses. 
Sadly, we elect our officials.
Maybe it’s time we hold them to account, demand of them what they demand of us. Maybe she should be forced to lose her income so she can have the frustrating experience of applying for unemployment using a system that doesn’t work and being left on hold.
Someone is benefiting from all the hysteria and it most certainly isn't about saving lives.
It’s no wonder the mob rose up, stormed the Bastille and cut off some heads.

"And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer." Rainer Maria Rilke

"No, we don't need more sleep. It's our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don't need more sleep, we need to wake up and live." Brooke Hampton

A quote from Masked And Anonymous, the 2003 movie starring Bob Dylan. I highly recommend watching it. It's especially appropriate for the current state of affairs. Some great lines, including the one above.

What ever is going on and who ever is behind it, it's really successful and effective. You can smell the fear.
I just came back from a trip to the local Whole Foods Market. A few of us there, unmasked. The atmosphere was that of a flock of muffled, bleating sheep frightened by wolves, the fear of hunted animals.
It's for sure a homemade mask crafted no doubt, with love and good intention, from someone's flannel nightgown or table cloth, will keep you safe from harm.
And now, after how many weeks of panic, we are no longer allowed to bring our own bags into the store to self-pack because, as the cashier said, 'it's better to be safe than sorry' as if I'm in danger from my own shopping bags. Shouldn't someone be worried about the danger present from the clothing I'm wearing? Must I shower and go in naked?
And why would we wear our masks while driving our cars alone? Do we need to protect ourselves from ourselves? And why are we afraid to have friends and family in our homes? How long will that go on, because surely the virus won't just disappear. Someone could always be carrying it. 
We peek out our windows, hiding behind our curtains, watching the comings and goings of our neighbors so we can turn them in, report their activities, alert the authorities.
Whose life are you worried about? Just your own?
Are you not worried about the lives of the people who are killing themselves because of the abuse of power, loss of income, loss of home, loss of business.
Who should we report to regarding this increase in suicides or the intensified domestic violence, that so often leads to death.
​Ask a few more questions. Remove the gag.  

"We live in a world of spin and hype, messaging and image, of official lying so routine that it has lost its ability to shock us. Therefore, no longer do the hierarchs of Western society seem able to proclaim, "So shall it be," and thereby speak wonders into existence. The mystical incantations of the Federal Reserve no longer conjure prosperity. The rituals of the medical establishments, despite their hyperbolic elaborations, cannot dispel new-wave diseases like autoimmunity, allergy, Lyme, and cancer. The rites of injection, the pill, the divinatory test, and the procedure have lost their magic potency...we no longer know what we believe or believe what we know. We are entering a space between stories." Charles Eisenstein - Forward to Come Of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble by Stephen Jenkinson.
There is a pause, a still point, that exists between the in-breath and the out-breath, the space between the notes. Words are breath and stories are words and we know who we are by our stories. And perhaps what needs to change is the meaning we attach to the stories we tell.