Dirty Fingernails

Hey Dunkalunkin, what’s shakin? I feel spunky right now cause I’m wearing camo shorts (I cut up my cargo pants) and work boots. HaHA! I love it.

I’m going stir Crazy in the city, but have been glad to meander the interwebs for a few days, too. I took a purifying bath today and tossed in some salt, peppermint, and mugwort (some of which was the stuff you left me – THANK YOU!) to help me refocus and get back into my real self. My relationship with Cortney is a good thing, but Challenging to my self-esteem and composure and I’m fighting to get back to a solid center.

I SO wish we could be doing magic together. Even when we both felt crappy it was so good just to sit in circle with you. BOY do I miss that. Maybe if we were strong enough with our intent and energy we could create a telepathic circle and connect with each other.

Would you like to plan a circle together online or over the phone, and then both agree to do it at the same time (off the phone) and see what happens?

Either way, I’ve gotta get my ass outdoors and under a tree to sit and just be magic for awhile. Like, every day.

Have your books been helping you feel better at all? Are you finding inspiration anywhere? The volcanoes? The beach? The rocks? Flowers, trees? Salty breezes? Maybe if you can connect with nature you won’t feel as isolated.

Thinkin about you all the time. Love you, even if we’re both too antisocial or upset to call each other. Sending you good vibes and fool’s gold lovin.

Middle of Nowhere

I’m out in the Midwest now. Nux and I are camping at a spot we hope to make our homestead in the coming years. I can’t get to a computer very often, but life is good. I’m washing my clothes by hand in buckets, cooking over an open fire, and figuring out how to survive without all the most common modern systems. The days are beautiful, I hear animals all the time instead of cars, I don’t have any obligations or restrictions on my time, and my life is focused around the weather and my basic needs – food, water, shelter.

Duncan, I’ve written you a letter or two – the first one was delayed cause I forgot to write the zipcode on there. Sorry! Hope you’re getting them alright. I’ll try to write often. Thinking of you. <3

Well Met, Spring

Spring is finally here. Bushes and saplings and even big trees are buzzing lime green with baby leaves, daffodils are nodding everywhere I look, and hyacinths are drawing bees back to the city.

I’ve been running most every morning for about a half hour, and it makes me feel great. I think I’ve lost a few pounds in the last two weeks… I’m trying to eat fruits and veggies every day and get a lot of exercise. I’d really like to trim the bit of extra fat off my face and off my thighs and make room for more muscle as I head out to Missouri and all the hard work I’ll have to do there. It seems to be working so far!

I haven’t done any rune study, but I’ve read a book called something like The Magic of Findhorn, and learned some wonderful things about nature spirits and how to work with the energies of the world.

I’ve got all my seeds alphabetized and sorted, ready to go into the ground as soon as it’s warm enough.

How are things in Hawaii?

Civilization

Civilization makes me crazy. I’m trying to quit refined sugar and it’s giving me mood swings. I don’t want to go to work. I’m trying to get rid of all my stuff – furniture, unneeded books, cd players, my computer, my rug, lamps, curtains – everything. I’m going through old school files and only keeping what’s really important to me, trashing all my old ‘official’ files – bank statements, pay stubs, loan bills, all that bullshit. I’ve put out a TON of paper to recycle this past week!

I just hope it’s worth it when I get to Missouri. I hope it really does work out the way I’m seeing in my head, that I can do the work necessary to Not need money any more. Hopefully once we lease this land I’ll really only need money for seeds anymore. Grow food, build a house from the land. Car insurance will be my biggest expense at $88/month, and even that will be considered a luxury. Gosh, what else?

Not much, for now. Just rallying all the funds I can to make the trip out West and start for real. Living in the real world, where eventually I might be able to listen to the trees and the water and the soil, and start a conversation.

Update

Unfortunately I haven’t been reading much of the “Little Big Encyclopedia of Runes”.  I slipped up… I got depressed again and started drinking and smoking.  I really miss home.  I miss all of my friends (especially you Joan), I miss my mom and my brother (I miss mom and us hanging out and watching Farscape or Smallville… I miss Collin and I playing Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles… I miss all three of us playing Pokemon or Harvest Moon: Rune Factory on my mom’s bed), I miss Dewey, Ressie, Alicia (RIP), Mario (RIP), and the mouse.  I miss it all.  Don’t get me wrong, it is wonderful here.  Food always in the fridge, Japanese stuff out the wazoo, I have a brand new 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid, I am having a room custom designed… but it’s not home yet.

Susan likes to drink… which is I guess one reason I fell back into it.  I don’t have a job yet, I am bored all day, and when I see Sus drunk… well, I like forgetting that this is my permanent home for now.

The other morning I ordered “Taking Up the Runes” by Diana Paxson (It’s the book you use Joan) because I like the layout and from what I had read of it… I like the tone.  I hope it can help me focus.  Also, until my handmade runes get here, I ordered some runes online (sodalite… for insight and combining the conscious and unconscious mind).  I really hope these things will get me back on track.

I have always felt connected to runes and want to learn the history, mythology, literal meaning, and the magickal meaning of them so that I may incorporate them in everyday life.  I also hope that being here in Hawaii will give me a new sensation of the energy around us and help my experience with the runes be a strong one.

Oh, and by the way Joan, if you have an extra copy of the book I would love to read it (if you do, should I send you my address).

Berkano

I don’t know what runic half-month it is. I’ve also been fighting depression – living in the suburbs doesn’t make life too easy. I feel disconnected from nature, jostled by noise and electronics, and without purpose. I’m working a job just for the money and wonder how I keep finding myself there, back in a bakery cleaning up after corporate America.

But it’s money, and that money is going to provide me with land that I can hold as my own for the rest of my life. It’s gotta be worth it – as long as I can keep my soul in one piece. The more I learn about the state of our world, the less I can play along. In March I’ll be heading west, and will leave it behind. Hopefully I’ll never return.

I want a very different life. I’ll be calling on berkano to give me that silent, subtle strength and resilience. To help me slip by unnoticed but remain steadfast in my purpose.

Dunc, you should look into the book Spiritwalker. I think I have an extra copy that I can mail you – it’s written by a man living in Hawai’i and I think it would open your eyes even wider – I really enjoyed reading it at the end of last year, and I think you’d enjoy it too.

Also, look into the book Communicating with Orcas. Amazing stuff.

Love you runebrotha.

Starting Back Up

So most recently I have had a LOT of life changes.  I have moved to Hawai’i, left friends and family behind, have become unemployed, gone through depression, and battled alcoholism and a smoking addiction (both of which I have overcome!).

Recently I have received almost all of my books (at least all the new age ones), and have started reading my Little Big Encyclopedia of Runes again.  I am taking a different approach from last time… I am reading the book entirely through before I start my focus on each individual rune.  That way I am familiar with all of them and it will be easier to focus when the time comes.

I am so eager to start my magickal journey here.  The energy feels great and I can’t wait to cast my first cirlce!

I will keep posting (at least once a week) on what I learn as I read the book.  So keep checking Joan aka. Runesista!!!! <3

{Half-Months}

The half month of Thurisaz is over. I felt sluggish for the beginning of the half month but got my ass into gear toward the end of it as the moon approached fullness. I laid outside during the middle of the night for a meteor shower, drank in the energy of the full moon, and made progress in many of the projects I’m excited about at the farm.

Now we’re into the half month of Ansuz, and I can only hope my communication skills help me to get even more done. There are many things I want to jump into and learn about – I’m feeling a strong compulsion to read and write, and create. Maybe that’s how I’ll communicate for now, through my desires to learn and express.

I’m not sure how long runic half months have been around. They feel rather applicable to me so far – it was exciting to find that I initiated my rune study at the beginning of Fehu’s half month. But I wonder if it’s an historical way to look at the calendar, or if its as made up and new-agey as the ‘blank rune’ that wasn’t used during the Viking Age.

Suffice it to say I’m happy to look at the calendar in this different way for now, as it still applies to my general moods and feelings and until I do more thorough research.

Contemplating Gods

It has been my established belief that no “God” or gods existed and were, in fact, often a dangerous concept in which to believe.

Christians have done scary things with the idea of “God” for millenia now. On a practical level, I don’t believe in a heavenly entity that looks like a human and punishes or rewards us based on our actions. I don’t believe that we should live in fear of some imaginary being and that we should do ‘right’ in the world because we’re Afraid of that being. That’s Bullshit.

On a political level, deities that punish and reward have been manipulated by men as a form of control, of power play, for millenia, and that’s also bullshit. I hate that. It’s a means to keep commoners down, to keep people imprisoned in beliefs that rob them of self-esteem and the important need to feel capable and in control of your life and destiny.

Very similar to these two notions are things that I DO believe in – 1. that the natural forces that exist on this planet Will eventually screw you over if you’re a jerk, and 2. that if humans had stronger feelings of capability they would feel empowered enough that they wouldn’t need to cower before a demanding God to do good in the world.

Deities can be useful constructs, I’ll admit to that. They are useful in that they provide a common image for people to share when they’re referring to collected energies. But, perhaps from a somewhat luddite perspective, I’m inclined to Avoid deities because of the HORRIFIC amounts of evidence that deities CAN and WILL be used by humans to control others, and that is Wrong.

I suggest an Amish approach. Look at gods/technology. Avoid most of them because of their mass-production and potential to completely and utterly ruin your way of life before you’ve even had time to realize what was happening. Give us time as a species to adapt to the abrupt changes of the last several centuries. Look at the opportunities for appropriate ‘deities’ – gods of the land in your area, the energetic spirit of local plants or animals, of a local forest collected into one idea. These deities are a practical way to relate to your surroundings – it’s helpful to recognize them as energetic beings in your environment, to respect them and honor them as you pass through their territory just as you would want others to do if they passed through your land/home. It’s nice to get recognition, for people to say – ‘hey! it looks like someone lives here, let’s be kind to them and respect their creation and their safety and right to a comfortable home.’

I’m diverging. Maybe this isn’t a one-post issue. I’m sure I’ll post about it again, as I’ve specifically Not believed in gods for awhile, but this is the first time I’ve approached the idea from this perspective, and it brings a layer of complexity to the issue that makes me want to give it more consideration.

I suppose, in summation for the night (my birthday, now officially over for two hours), I’ll just say that life is not a system of punishment and reward, that it’s many more infinitesimal shades of gray, and that humans should understand themselves as inherently involved energetic beings in a world full of other energetic beings before they look to any deity as something by which to be ruled or controlled.

Definitely time to stop before I continue losing coherence. Thanks. Have a nice night And for those of you who’ll see the solar eclipse on the 1st, enjoy!

Urges

This morning was eventful and kept a steady, energetic pace. This afternoon I felt sluggish and unmotivated. By evening, I realized I had (by indecision) ruled out several tasks that I could have accomplished for the day. I spent the evening online, and stumbled back into the records of the Wolves of Vinland – vikings living in Virginia who live, craft, and toast together and have land on which they’re building a long hall.

I also saw reference again to runic half-months – and saw that we’re in the half-month of Uruz, primal energy, uniting opposing elements to bring energies to fruition. I was definitely feeling it, and spent the evening gulping down information and wanting to go for a run, to lift weights, to know the runes more deeply – in general, to be closer to what I want to be. Strong, wise, active in my environment and intimate with my surroundings.

I burnt some of my energy by getting rid of more of my belongings and organizing what I am keeping so that it’s not in the way of those passing through the den. Now I’ll either hang out with Duncan or not, and will possibly meditate, run, lift weights, or just spend some time in the dark. Any outcome will be welcome and refreshing, even though the more official ‘work’ I should have done today has been put off one more time.