Calc - Chalk Turns To Bone, Earth To Blood

​Calc
I hail thee
raising the mead cup
the gilded horn
I pour out my offerings
to the gods
honoring memory
chalk turns to bone
earth to blood
you provide
nourishment
for Yggdrasil 
This original rune poem by Ingrid Kincaid was first published in the completely, handmade book (un) familiar.  Read the story of its creation.

(un) familiar

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Memory is a powerful thing.  Without it, we don’t know who we are.
The cup holds many things and when it’s full to overflowing, do you partake of it all or do you partake and then pour out the rest?
Sigyn’s cup catches and holds the venom that drips on Loki, caustic and punishing.  Even the smallest droplets burn her hands and when she leaves for only a moment to empty it, Loki writhes in pain.
There are the bowls that hold the Mead of Poetry, made from honey and the blood of Kvasir who was formed from chewed berries and the communal spittle of the gods.
There is the Cauldron of Aegir where the beer for the gods is brewed.  There are containers that hold the blood of warriors and containers that carry the blood of sacrifice.
There is the gilded aurochs horn filled with the fermented liquid carried by Freya, she who receives the dead into her hall Sessrumnir, found on the field of Folkvangr and it is from this gilded horn we all must drink in the sacred marriage of death.
What are the contents of your mead cup?  Who holds it for you?  Or do you carry it yourself?  And when it’s full, do you drink from it before you pour it out?  Or are the contents something other than liquid?
To remember is to honor.  To honor is to offer something up.
I stand on the mound pouring out an offering to the gods, an offering given in exchange.  The endless cycle.  The skeletal remains of ancient sea creatures compressed by the weight of ages form chalk and chalk fertilizes the earth where the crops grow and we are fed.  We are blood and bone and we return ultimately to the ancient seas that nurtured the sea creatures that became chalk.
 
Looking at Calc you might see, instead of the upturned container, the three roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil.  Others do.  Each of the three roots grows into a different well, Urdarbrunnr, Hvergelmir and Mimisbrunnr.  At some time in the far distant past, which is also the future, did Calc contain something valuable and sacred that was poured out into the wells that water the roots that water the tree?  And if so, what was it?  And where did it come from?  Was it the contents of your cup?
Pouring something onto the ground nourishes the ancestors as well for that’s where they’re buried.  How do you honor your ancestors and their memory?  How do you feed the World Tree?  What are you willing to pour out when Calc appears among the runes?

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