Noun

inspiration /ɪnspɨˈɹeɪʃən/

1. The act of inspiring or breathing in.
2. breath
3. (physiology) The drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm.
4. The act or power of exercising an elevating or stimulating influence upon the intellect or emotions; the result of such influence which quickens or stimulates; as, the inspiration of occasion, of art, etc.
5. A supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred writers, by which they were qualified to communicate moral or religious truth with authority; a supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the truth communicated.

from Wiktionary

Last night I stood before my altar and took a few deep breaths. I closed my eyes and tried to empty myself, but found myself filled with words and moved to pray regardless. I have never spontaneously spouted poetry; usually when I pray it is conversational, offering thanks and beseeching blessings the same as I would speak, though with more respect and reverence.

I cannot remember the words, but it seemed like their ephemera was part of the magic. Giving voice to the words that are moving you, letting them be heard, and letting them “die” and fade back into the well or cauldron of creativity once more. It’s the fire that moves them into being, quickens the elements of the collective pool of memory, and for a moment you serve as the tree that bridges the Over and Underworlds in the temporary Midrealm.

The thing that scared me most was when I was praying for the Gods not only to see me and aid me but also to “forget” me. When I came to that part of the ecstatic prayer I choked and had to pause, repulsed, waiting for an explanation. Why was I asking to be forgotten?

There was something filling me at the edge of my mind, reminding me of my mortality and how, like these words that will be forgotten after their purpose has been fulfilled, I will also fade back into nothing after I do what I am here to do: live. Of course the identity/ego we create for ourselves with dissolve when we do, and the Gods will not remember us as Lindevi or whoever (our egotistical selves/identity) but as their children collectively. The relationship becomes abstract: the energy goes on, though the exchange has changed.

The past and future that constructs us will no longer have a reference point, and there will only be the Now again, until I am renewed into another body.

The Midrealm stands, subjective to the objective realities of Above and Below, being shaped by them and destroyed by Them, the conflicting bodies of Chaos and Cosmos.

I picked up my prayer again, scared but resolved, until I came to its end. With that I inclined my head and thanked the Powers, feeling perhaps a little more sure of my footing on this new path.

One of these days I will have the courage to offer up my voice as an offering. To sing for my Gods a song of prayer, full of intention and praise, as opposed to the little vocal exercises I have been to give to Them during the day, in the car or at my desk. I feel shivers down my spine and wonder if I’m just imagining things, or if is an actual response from SomeOne/Thing.

But it will be some time before I learn the words, the melodies. There is definitely something powerful about certain “riffs” that I have heard, a sort of permanence and timelessness that has affected me since I was young. You hear a song and instantly are transported back to a childhood memory that doesn’t exists, and are elated. “I must have heard this as a child, because it resonates with me so thoroughly, it’s like I’ve been searching for the notes my whole life and have finally heard them again.” I have identified some of those sacred melodies in modern songs, but it scares me to offer these parts that have been used in such mundane ways. But there’s something about them, that’s for sure. I want to weave these parts into perhaps my own song, or songs, but will need some more training before I can do so.

To that end I’ve decided I need to learn Old English. It shouldn’t be that hard, given the similarities to my own language, but it would set certain lyrics apart from the mundane, find a common ground between the Gods of my culture and me. I will have to experiment and give serious thought to the difference between praying in English and praying in the Old Tongue. There are certainly arguments to be had both ways.

Maybe, just maybe, it is time to approach Woden, whom I’ve avoided during my devotion to Tiw. Now that I’m not destined for a political path, and have dedicated myself to writing, the tables have likely turned. I am trading the upright sureties of law and order for the fluid gray areas of literature and human life. And perhaps I owe Woden a horn of mead as I begin to tread on his domain.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Wheel of the Year, Hallows marks the beginning of winter. I had always thought this to be a more northern phenomenon, as October would frequently be warm and we wouldn’t even begin to see frosts until November at least.

Not so this year. Our First Big Snow hit today, cancelling Halloween celebrations across the valley as we hunkered down and braced for a predicted 10-14” of wet, white slush. I was thankful to have gone in to work at 5am, meaning I would get out “on time” at 2pm, theoretically just in time to beat the storm home.

Three and a half hours later I owe this entry to the Gods-sent snowplow that blazed the trail up the mountain even when the main road was shutting down. Otherwise I’m not sure if or when I’d even have made it home, confronting steep hills or accident-laden highways in every direction.

Nothing like a natural disaster or two to get you back in touch with your region’s geography. Hurricane Irene taught me to look to slopes and ravines—where the water flows. You don’t realize how your entire town is bordered by streams until you are trying desperately to find a crossing that hasn’t been flooded over yet. Or how you’re incredibly lucky your house is situated on a ridge and blessed with drainage on either side to avoid devastating flooding.

This storm has taught me why trees lose their leaves in winter: surface area + sticky snow = disaster. Fall hadn’t even come full force in my town, and the roads were lined with green-leaved trees buckling under the weight or with branches missing—some had even split in half down the middle of the trunk. The river was veiled by a grey fog as I pulled into my neighborhood. A herd of deer crossed the road in between fallen debris, bounding over drifts. They are clearly more used to this than I.

I creep out of my car after enduring a ride more than eight times its usual length only to discover power is already out at home. My brother announces a single remaining cup of coffee left in the French press and I bask in its warmth, realizing that any hot meal tonight is going to require a moderate amount of effort on my part. You don’t realize how much the sacred fire is taken for granted in the modern era until simple conveniences like microwaves, lights, and heat go away. It was all you had left against the cold, the dark, and death, a theme echoed in George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire to great effect.

I will be spending tonight in darkness save for the candles I have pilfered from the closet and the sacred flame of transformation of fueland air to light and heat. I will be spending tonight in cold save for the warmth of modern fibers and the companionship of my kin. I will be spending tonight in contemplation of the beauty, the awe, and danger of the dark half of the year. And I will be spending tonight in gratitude for all that the Kindreds have given me to protect myself against it.

There is nothing quite like coming home after being truly afraid you’ll end up stranded in a winter’s storm.

I am now officially a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin (or, as I like to tell my friends, “I’m now a druid IRL”), albeit a loose one. The closest Grove to me is in NYC–doable, but not easy (or cheap), and I only see two other members on the official map for the whole of Orange County. I’ve reached out to my local witches meetup group in the hopes that there are some hiding in the woodwork there, and might just have a lead. In the meantime, I seem to have found an eclectic mix of pagans in the midst of my friends and coworkers, though their paths lead in different directions than mine.

Yet, the ADF’s Dedicant program is what intrigued me most, with its formal course of study and practice to be completed at your own pace. Having almost ten years of background in paganism, I thought a year-and-a-day length would be doable, and as I’ve said before on this blog, I intend to take my first official step towards oathing on Hallows.

The hardest part will be learning the symbolism and values of ADF itself. The Fire, the Cauldron, and the Tree mean little to me as yet, nor does the awen or triskele, though I’ll be exploring them in depth in the coming months. Seeing the Fire and Ice Kindred and the number of northern tradition practitioners on ADF’s home page is encouraging, and hopefully I’ll be able to find my own footing within the parallel currents of Celtic and Indo-European cultures that run through the organization.

I’ve converted Linden Leaves into an online journal in the interest of staying on course, but also so I might be able to connect with other druids or witches out there who are treading a similar way. I’ve updated the layout and will be adding more content on rites and holy tides, prayer and meditation as I work my way through the 52-week program. Subjects of interest that I hope to be treating on include:

• Galdr
• Devotional Work
• Runes
• Totemism
• and Witchcraft

in addition to the three Kindreds venerated by the druids, the Gods, the Spirits, and Ancestors. Though these pages are spare as of yet, over the course of the next year they will hopefully fill out quite a bit, and perhaps some of the entries here might even serve as inspiration to the next seeker that comes along searching for relationship with the Gods and magic of the Old English.

On my rosary I include three goddess beads, one for each of the tribes, giving thanks to Frig, Freo, and Hel with citrine, amber, and tiger’s eye respectively. The first two are obviously honored as the queens of their garths and homes, but calling the third “queen of the eoten or rökkr” seems more dubious, unless I envision the three as representative of the Over, Middle, and Underworlds, in which case her inclusion is especially fitting.

More than that, I owe her a great debt for scaring the shit out of me when I needed it most. Fascinated by heathen mysticism, I essentially set out woefully unprepared and grandiosely delusioned as to my intent. I was, to put it bluntly, humbled before her, and I didn’t mess with shit I didn’t understand from then on. The next day I bought her a rose, dried it on my altar, and left it in the snow for her as an offering. She has been in my prayers ever since, even if the observance is somber.

When I pass over the tiger’s eye bead, I invoke her as “Guardian and Gatekeeper, Giver of Grace.” I see her as both protecting the living from the dead as guardian and regulating souls’ entrance into Death as gatekeeper, but also as ruling over a place that, while sorrowful, ensures each soul is given something to eat at death’s table.

As a culture we have such an unhealthy relationship with death in part because of the distance we maintain between it and us, pretending as though we will never die or artificially extending life without extending its quality. Death was a common occurrence centuries, even decades ago, but now we shield ourselves from it and fear it irrationally, pretending it doesn’t exist and trying to mask the pain of loss. To live is also to die. Death deserves our respect and reverence. But nobody said it would be easy.

I believe Hel appeared to me at that time in part because I had just lost my paternal grandmother, the woman I felt closest to of all my relatives, and was experiencing the loss of someone dear to me for the first time in my life. (I was lucky to have gotten away without knowing death until I was nineteen, but it also made me that much more keenly aware of her passing.) Hel did not comfort so much as confront me, and I was able to cope with my feelings on my own. Seeing even that tiny glimpse of Hel while I was struggling with grief for the first time put a lot of things into perspective, and allowed me to puzzle out my thoughts on death in a spiritual context.

I remember Ruth by a number of small trinkets of hers now stored on my altar, and feel her when I call upon my family’s Ides. She is not gone entirely; I still have my memories of her.

The significance of Hel being my first mystical experience makes Hallows all the more appropriate for the beginning of a serious year-and-a-day study of saxon paganism and witchcraft. I begin with the death of my old life and will end with death again, completing the cycle and preparing me to start my spiritual journey anew. My ancestors will be there with me, the women whom I honor on the fourth bead of my rosary, moonstone. “Ancient Ancestors, aid us and our own.” When I like three candles for them on Hallows, may they be a beacon in the darkness of the long nights of winter soon to come.

The farm next to Eric's house is beginning to bundle its hay for the winter.

Yesterday was the first time I smelled “Fall” in the morning, and tonight is the full moon. Perhaps I should have known that Eric and I would have had an argument about what I’ve “reaped” thus far. I think the message is that I should be thankful for what I have right now, not perpetually pining for a distant future. I just landed a promotion with a 15% pay raise, my managers like me, and I’m able to practice writing more. Eric hasn’t gone to school yet, my best friend is back from college, and I’m getting to know my coworkers better. For now, that should be enough.