Rain has fallen every day since West Virginia day. Thirteen days so
far. Rain falls right now and cars shush along the Midland Trail that thirteen
days ago was a river of mud as our town and many others flooded.
Monday, June 20, 2016, Mark and I went to Richwood. We visited friends and then went to the gentle place on the hill where I was raised. We offered Mead for the Ancestors, Spirits of the Land, and Elder Gods and Goddesses – in specific: Dagr, Sunna, and Baldr – Day and a God and Goddess of light and sun.
Some think of Baldr as having gone to the underworld in much the same way those of another Path thinks of The Oak King – ruling the light half of the year and dying on his day of highest glory – the Summer Solstice. The Holly King begins his reign and blind Hod begins his, for the half of the year when the light wanes and the sun weakens and hours of daylight grow shorter.
This honoring is a reminder than everything contains its opposite – great joy contains sorrow, great sorrow turns to joy. Everything changes and time is not linear. We, who follow this way, each in our own manner, celebrate circles and the great cycle of change and of the seasons. We know that life gives way to death and death again to life. It is good to know this when death stalks our valley and has taken so much life. I hear those of another persuasion reciting, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” These are the stories of light and life we have told ourselves, that we, the people, have created to remind ourselves that in beginnings, there are seeds of ending and in endings, there is a beginning.
Monday, June 20, 2016, Mark and I went to Richwood. We visited friends and then went to the gentle place on the hill where I was raised. We offered Mead for the Ancestors, Spirits of the Land, and Elder Gods and Goddesses – in specific: Dagr, Sunna, and Baldr – Day and a God and Goddess of light and sun.
Some think of Baldr as having gone to the underworld in much the same way those of another Path thinks of The Oak King – ruling the light half of the year and dying on his day of highest glory – the Summer Solstice. The Holly King begins his reign and blind Hod begins his, for the half of the year when the light wanes and the sun weakens and hours of daylight grow shorter.
This honoring is a reminder than everything contains its opposite – great joy contains sorrow, great sorrow turns to joy. Everything changes and time is not linear. We, who follow this way, each in our own manner, celebrate circles and the great cycle of change and of the seasons. We know that life gives way to death and death again to life. It is good to know this when death stalks our valley and has taken so much life. I hear those of another persuasion reciting, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” These are the stories of light and life we have told ourselves, that we, the people, have created to remind ourselves that in beginnings, there are seeds of ending and in endings, there is a beginning.
Hail Day, Hail Day’s
son,
Hail Night and her daughter,
Look upon us here with eyes of love,
And bid us great joy,
Hail Gods, Hail Goddess,
Hail much-loved Earth,
Wise words and sage wit
Grant to us, the (other) Storied Ones,
And healing hands in this life.
Hail Night and her daughter,
Look upon us here with eyes of love,
And bid us great joy,
Hail Gods, Hail Goddess,
Hail much-loved Earth,
Wise words and sage wit
Grant to us, the (other) Storied Ones,
And healing hands in this life.
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