I've decided to get a bit more specific with this blog in addition to the generalized theory and descriptions of my practices and ideas. I've always treated this as being kind of out there and highly personal, but if there's one thing I've come to understand, it's that sharing personal experiences can be valuable. I'm going to be adding a UPG tag to the blog for this post and future posts in a similar vein, which will cover meditative experience and communication with my gods and the spirit world. As with any UPG (unverified personal gnosis, for those unfamiliar with the term), take it with a grain of salt; it's my personal experience, and I'm just sharing it to add it to the sea of other experiences out there.
So, what better way to start than by explaining my first experiences with Fenrir? I'm going to do this as a multi-part series to frame how my spiritwork has progressed over the years.
I've talked before about my lifelong anger issues. I was a miserable little bastard of a child. I'd throw temper tantrums at the drop of a hat, yell, scream, hit things, you name it. It was one of those things where everything seemed to build up within me until I just broke, and at that age, I didn't know how to handle it or how to process it properly so that it didn't boil over. And it did boil over. Constantly. I had a hair trigger, and as much as it shames me to admit it, I had no control over it until my mid-teens. Solitude was the one thing that helped me to get a handle on it. Leaving the school system for home-schooling was the best choice I could have made; it took me away from the negative environment that just seemed to feed that lingering rage, and into a solitary environment where I was able to focus without the distraction. That was also around the same age that I started exploring my belief system and getting into mythology.
The Morrigan came to me first. From what I've experienced, she tends to be a bit of a forerunner; going ahead of other gods to feel out worshipers that are drawn to her. I'm not going to say she wasn't significant, by any means, but she was definitely part of the means in drawing me to Fenrir. It all started about two years after making contact with the Morrigan. I want to say I was around 19/20 at the time, so this was a good decade ago (great way to remember that you're getting older -- think back on a major life event and realize that 10 years have gone by). I was in the midst of what was at the time a fairly normal meditation session -- laying in my bed and staring at the ceiling half-aware of myself, conversing with the Morrigan and going through some mental combat drills -- when I felt a very different presence enter my mindspace.
Fenrir's energy is very much unique among the beings I've worked with, unmistakable even when I didn't know what it was. The first thing that hits is the adrenaline surge. For me, the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands on end the moment I feel it, my heart rate accelerates, and I usually get a whiff of something vaguely metallic on the air not long after. What he projects to me is all fight or flight in those first moments, and the fact that I've never backed down from it is what assures me that I'm working with the right gods. What follows is usually the sensation of eyes on me from all directions as my own senses sharpen and become more intensely aware of my surroundings on the other side.
That first fateful time, the Morrigan remained at my side and led me through the grove where I do most of my work to a marked cave that warped and distorted my mindscape to bring me to Fenrir's prison, though she did not enter the cave with me. I'll note now that Fenrir-as-wolf has never appeared to me anywhere other than the prison, chained to the rocks and unable to move more than his head. As I entered his prison, I saw him for the first time, and will never forget the immensity of him. His jaws were the size of a small bed, held open by a two-handed sword wedged so that the point was lodged in the roots of his lower teeth, with the pommel embedded in his hard palette. The rest of him followed perfectly in scale, words can't do justice. His coal black fur was matted in places and coated with a film of dust and dirt from the cave's roof overhead, shaken loose as he strained against his fetters. What stays with me the most though, were his eyes.
First, I need to stress that his eyes were huge -- easily the size of my head, or larger. I could see my entire frame reflected on the fevered tears that welled over them, and a large portion of the torch-lit cave around me. As inhuman as Fenrir-as-Wolf can be, there was so much raw emotion in those eyes. Pain, anger, hatred -- all of these are expected from him. The agony he exists in at that fetter is unbearable, the rage that burns in his heart is undeniable and fuels him, and the hatred he holds for the ones who put him there cannot be extinguished. This is what you expect to see, but what lies beneath that was what led me to remain. I'm not going to humanize or soften Fenrir here -- that is impossible -- but what I saw in his eyes was the same feeling of being held back that had plagued me.
Think of it this way: We are all born with the freedom of choice. We can take whatever path in life we wish, as influenced by our surroundings. Inevitably, we run into that wall that prevents us from making a choice that we want to make, and get that sense that we were cheated out of an opportunity. Fenrir understands that feeling all too well. He was demonized for his nature and imprisoned for being a threat, yes. However, he was imprisoned before that threat was realized. Whether he was going to become the Devourer of his own volition or not is forever lost to time, and I could see the resentment for that choice being made for him behind all of the pain and fury.
We didn't have any sort of a verbal or mental exchange that meeting, and that actually wouldn't happen for a few years to come. Instead, I sat down on a rock across from him, and bowed my head in thought. I felt the fury flowing from him and into me. I recognized the same anger that had welled up and out of me as a child in that sensation, the unchecked animal rage with nothing to guide it short of hatred and that would, absent of the target of that hatred, run amok. I don't know how long I remained in the cave with him on that visit, it felt like days inside the meditation. Eventually, I felt that it was time to leave. I brought out some whiskey and some meat within the spirit-world as an offering, pouring the whiskey over the wound to help clean it and numb the pain and cutting the meat so that he could eat it even with the blade preventing any sort of proper swallowing.
When I left, the Morrigan was still waiting for me at the exit of the cave. She placed a hand on my shoulder and assured me that I'd done well, and that it was only the first stage of my greater training. I felt a change almost immediately. My temper had gone from hair-trigger to more controlled almost instantly. It wasn't a perfect change, and it took more workings to get the full extent of my temper under control, but the foundation started in that first encounter with the Bound One was profound enough to make sure that I stuck with it.
To be continued in part 2...
No comments:
Post a Comment