I’ve made a Bibliography page listing some books I like. These will not be reviewed in the blog, although that isn’t to say that books I do review here won’t eventually make it onto the list as well.
Turning June 23, 2009
I’ve been out of town recently and busy with various other things, hence the silence. However, I hope to write a review of the Norris book I mentioned earlier (just as soon as I finish reading it, that is). I’d also like to do a series of essays on the eight “high holidays” celebrated by most Pagans and what they might look like from a monastic perspective.
Today is the traditional old Midsummer Day but the actual Summer Solstice was two days ago. I’m going to enjoy the summer while it lasts, since it is short but sweet in New England — fresh vegetables and fruit, blue skies, thunderstorms, sunny beaches, forest greenery and (sigh) bugs.
Edit: No! Today is actually Midsummer’s Eve and tomorrow is Midsummer.
The Merry Month of May! April 28, 2009
Here at the farm where I live, the trees are leafing out and the daffodils and violets are blooming. The beautiful but very poisonous bloodroot is flowering near the road by the goat yard. We have a new baby goat and two new baby lambs. Seeds are being planted for this year’s vegetable crop and the herb garden is coming back to life. I’m happy for fresh raw goat milk and organic eggs from our hens — over a dozen every couple of days. Plans are underway to clear away the debris from the ice storm and tidy up the orchard, although we missed pruning this year.
The following is a song from the mid-13th century. Someone told me it has the oldest known tune in (Middle) English. In the Pagan church I belong to, it’s sung at Beltane as a round while everyone dances around the Maypole. It is also sung in the final scene of The Wicker Man (the 1973 version with Christopher Lee, not…the other one.)
Sumer is icumun in
Lhude sing Cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
And springth the wde nu
Sing Cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lombe
Lhouth after calve cu
Bulloc sterteth, bucke verteth
Murie sing Cuccu!
Cuccu, Cuccu
Wel singes thu Cuccu
Ne swik thu never nu.
A translation (not mine, so I don’t know how accurate this is):
Summer has come in
Loudly sing cuckoo!
Seeds blow, meadow blooms
And the wood springs anew
Sing cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb
The cow lows after the calf
The bull leaps, the buck farts [!!!]
Merrily sing cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo
You sing cuckoo well
Now don’t you ever stop.
I’ll be away from home for a while, so even though it’s a couple of days early, here’s to a happy and glorious May Eve/May Day/Beltane/Walpurgisnacht for all.
Not Dead, Just Sleeping… February 12, 2009
I apologize for the long silence. I have several ideas stewing in the back of my mind for future posts, but lately I’ve been occupied with helping out some friends, (still) hammering out my clothing issues and getting some writing projects finished. I haven’t had the mental energy left over for the kind of thoughtful post I’d like to write next, and I’ll be traveling next week so I’m not sure when I’ll have something new here.
While I can be garrulous without really saying much of substance, in this blog I’d rather not go on and on about mundanities that will bore what few readers I have. As they say in The Sandman: The Wake, you shouldn’t say anything unless you’ve got something to say.
And yes, I realize that’s the second Sandman reference in as many posts. In addition to being a nun, I’m a comic-book-reading dork.
Addendum: My friends Galina Krasskova and Raven Kaldera have written a book called Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner, which has just been released. Some of you might be interested in this, although be warned that it is likely to be a controversial book in Asatru circles. It is focused on devotional activities rather than rituals or magic, which is why I’m mentioning it here.
Happy Yule! December 18, 2008
Between Yule, various personal commitments, and the fact that we have gone the past week without electricity or running water due to the ice storm that hit the Northeastern U.S., it’s likely that I’m not going to be posting again until January.
So until then, many blessings and may your winter holidays be full of happiness.
A Shift in the Wind December 2, 2008
When your life is influenced by deities who have Their own agendas, Their own reasons for doing things and for wanting you to do things, you have to be prepared for anything. I’ve managed to figure this out over the past several years, but sometimes it comes up and gobsmacks me unawares. This happened recently.
Yes, I’m still a nun. I’m still Loki’s wife, and His priestess. I’m still the gydja of Iron Wood Kindred and one of those pesky worshipers of etinous beings. Those things haven’t changed. But for the near future, I have to set aside my goal of developing a Pagan monastic Rule and eventually founding a temple and associated community. Whether or not those things will ever happen, I do not know. I dearly hope they will. However, I will not get the chance to try until I’m much older and, presumably, more experienced – a real elder as opposed to merely someone who came to this a bit later in life than most of the other god-touched people I know. I had suspected this for some time but only had it confirmed a week ago, and then re-confirmed via a third party’s divination.
It seems my instincts were correct when I sat down and thought about what becomes a monastic most, in terms of values. I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the future is going to be about service and sacrifice on a much more personal level than I imagined. The service part has the potential to be very painful and isolating, even though it is not a permanent situation. Yet I understand that I have been given a particular job by Those that govern me, and I want to do that job well even though it means doing without some things that I consider very important. Hence the sacrifice.
Anyhow, as far as this blog goes, I won’t be writing much about developing the Rule, like I had started to do and hoped to continue. When I began Twilight and Fire, I thought it would be about the practicalities of developing a “tradition” for Norse Pagan/Heathen monastics, a detached collection of essays about subjects like values and how to maintain a community. Well, no. It’s likely to be a lot more introspective and concerned with the daily struggles of a solitary nun, although I will not discuss my personal life except as it may pertain to the subject at hand. I’m going to make a point of reviewing interesting and relevant books I’ve read, and pointing out useful websites and other resources for those interested in monastic life. And I do have some goals in mind that I’d like to talk about here as I continue to pursue them.
So if you’re still interested, I’ll be posting here regularly about my life as a Lokean nun, in all its vivid, boring, aggravating or embarrassing detail. I suppose the experiment has already begun in spite of my best-laid plans, as these things tend to work out.
Gnnngh… October 16, 2008
I’ve taken down the post about my habits and the photo, as I am having some rather awkward personal issues about them which I don’t care to go into in this blog. Nunnish attire is still required of me, but it will probably be something slightly different.
All I can say is that this is what comes of being oathed to a trickster deity. One of the disadvantages of chronicling things as I go along, I guess. And Mercury just went out of retrograde, too, for whatever that’s worth. Normally I don’t put too much stock into that, as for me luck seems to increase during retrograde periods, but it just seemed…fitting somehow.
I’ll continue the series of posts on ethics soon. There ought to be one or two more.
