One of those days when you have to get out of the house early, and don’t have time to do a personal draw, so the Universe sends one your way.

The Six of Cups

This was in the parking lot at work!

I Remember
~ Anne Sexton

By the first of August

the invisible beetles began

to snore and the grass was

as tough as hemp and was

no color—no more than

the sand was a color and

we had worn our bare feet

bare since the twentieth

of June and there were times

we forgot to wind up your

alarm clock and some nights

we took our gin warm and neat

from old jelly glasses while

the sun blew out of sight

like a red picture hat and

one day I tied my hair back

with a ribbon and you said

that I looked almost like

a puritan lady and what

I remember best is that

the door to your room was

the door to mine.

The Giants’ Tarot, Raven Kaldera

Draw for February 24, 2017
Active Influence: Rind/Page of Swords
Rune: Hagalaz
Hidden Influence: Hreidmar & Ottar/Five of Coins

Rind appears as the Active Influence again today, this time in conjunction with a card of sorrow. Hagalaz brings disruption, delays, and problems that could not have been easily avoided. Instead of beating yourself up about what has happened or wishing things were different, you need to deal with things as they are right now.

Make a plan, accept the weregild, and move away from the scene of destruction. You need time to mourn, but first you need to get to a place of safety in which to do so.

I was gifted with two lovely red roses at PantheaCon last weekend!

The first, from Karen Krebser of The Muse’s Darling, was from the ritual of The Order of the Black Madonna. I put it on my Angrboda altar, and both She and the rose seem pleased about the arrangement:

A Rose for Angrboda

And I had the pleasure of making a new acquaintance, Sidney, who attended my Difficult Gods workshop, and gave me this rose in thanks. I’ve put it on my Sigyn altar, which seems satisfactory to all parties.

A Rose for Sigyn

Note to self: add fresh flowers to altars more regularly!

Greece
~ Gunnar Ekelöf
Translated from the Swedish by Leonard Nathan and James Larson

O whitewashed chapel

with icons worn out by kisses!

Your door is shut

only with a spike and a twist of wool

such as one gathers among thistles

and twines around the finger

The oil cruse stands ready

and the greasy lamp, and the plate

for him who has a penny

for him who hs matches

Old and new icons

a gift of mothers

— occasions have not been wanting —

for him who was left in the pass

for him who was taken as a janissary

for him whose eyesight was emptied

for him who was lost with Markos —

cheap prints under glass

Big as a sheepcote:

Your bells the sheepbells

tinkling somewhere up in the mountains

chapel whose lock is wool.