The Lone Wolf Once Again... Sort Of.

I've made some vague mentions about my efforts as a group practitioner of will-work over the last few years, but without any real details.  I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: There are two reasons for that, the first being that I don't discuss my own will-working openly, and the second being that I don't discuss anyone else's.

That said, I'm no longer a part of that group.  Fate has conspired to bring that bond to an unstable state, and as basic communication has fallen by the wayside, anything done in meditation has been completely eliminated.  I have, however, come to a realization about that which should have come a lot sooner: I'm not meant for the group practice approach.  I never was, and likely never will be until the day that I cement the bond with the one meant to be my mate.

My path is a unique one, and doesn't mesh well with those on more traditional ceremonial paths.  Simply gaining a meditative focus for me depends more on adrenaline than on relaxation.  Focusing my thoughts is less gently merging with the universe than it is forcefully projecting myself at the current situation.  I'm not a passive participant in the spiritual elements of the world around me, it's just not how I function.  Even efforts of Reiki style healing are more primal in approach, either focusing on driving out the pain with positive energy or trying to grasp onto pain and haul it out through force of will.  Adding that kind of aggressive will-work to more conventional relaxed will-work just doesn't mix.

So for the past few months, it's been back to the solitary path for me, albeit with a partner of sorts who has been the focus of much of my thoughts.  I've spent a lot of it refocusing my energy back to the warrior path.  Started off with more workouts at home, and especially more sword training.  But the weights I have at home stopped being a challenge a while ago, so it was time to take the next step.

I broke down and got a gym membership, and have been hitting the weights and heavy bag three times a week for the last month.  I treat every session as an informal devotional.  Thanks in large part to a good friend of mine, I've been concentrating on any sort of lift with a combat application, so if it mimics a sword thrust or a pugilist's strike, I'm all for it.  I'm gradually building into a solid routine, and it's all part of my effort to get into the best shape of my life.  So far, so good.  The bag-work has been an outstanding release of energy for me, especially once I picked up proper wrist wraps (Meister MMA has awesome prices on these, $4 for a longer, softer set than the $8 Everlast pair I picked up first).

My full moon and new moon lunar rites are back on track, with some of the most amazing alterations I could have asked for.  For the past year, I've been unable to communicate with anyone while in the middle of a devotional as part of the bans of the ritual.  Now, I've got one person that I can talk to freely throughout, who both Fenrir and Hela approve of wholeheartedly, and have welcomed into "the pack" even though her role in the future remains nebulous.  I focus the full moon rites on Fenrir's rage and dealing with spirits and problems that build up throughout the cycle, while the new moon rites are focused on divination and receiving guidance from Hela's vast connections to the dead.

Honestly, life is good.  Aside from the typical bullshit parts that get thrown at it, especially when you find someone worth caring about as much as you do yourself, if not more.  My faith is stronger than ever, my practices are more stable than ever, and I've got someone who makes me happy just to spend time chatting with.  In a lot of ways, this is the closest to being at peace that I can remember being.

Gullveig

"War, the very first war of our world,
When the treacherous witch was killed
Three times burned and three times born,
By searing flames was Gullveig torn."
Amon Amarth - War of the Gods

Gullveig has perhaps been one of the most frequently recurring figures in my internal process for the past two years.  Yes, there is a connection to Angrboda within her myth, but curiously, the recurring presence has very little to do with Angrboda's role as mother of my principle gods.  Sorting out the significance has been a very tenuous and downright odd process for me, and considering that she continues to surface in new contexts all the time, one that is far from complete.

At first, it was the connection to Angrboda that I thought was the be all and end all.  Her role as a master of magic was relevant, and her heart connected through myth to Loki siring the race of "troll women" or "wolf women" (or in some very viable interpretations where Angrboda is Gullveig-re-incarnated, Fenrir himself, but I consider that closer to UPG even though it agrees with mine) certainly fit form with what I was always drawn to.

Soon though, I started to realize that her significance was more than that for me.  In a lot of ways, I realized that she (right up to her association with Angrboda) was emblematic of my past relationships.  I'm not comparing myself to Gullveig here, I'll get that out of the way now.  In a sense, I've always had a very specific "type" for the most part, and every subsequent relationship has brought me closer to understanding what my ideal woman is actually like.

Gullveig, to me, has come to represent the same thing as the phoenix in mythology.  A conceptual entity who dies and is reborn in flames, becoming more refined and pure with each rebirth.  It's complicated, to say the least.  Obviously it isn't a literal death and resurrection, but rather the death and resurrection of the idea of what the ideal woman should be.  I've noticed a distinct pattern over the years.  Every relationship has put me through a new set of challenges that prepares me quite specifically for the next.  Now, obviously I can't go so far as to apply this to every emotional attachment, but only to the ones since Gullveig became relevant.

I'm not going to go into specific details here, because that's just metaphorical dirty laundry.  But it has been a recurring matter that I can't really brush off.  It's easy to say that it's because I have a specific "type" of woman that I'm attracted to and interested in, but that element has really been quite narrow in terms of why I've been in the situations I've been in, and the women have been very different aside from a very short list of personality traits.  Ordinarily, I'd just chalk it up to coincidence, but it's the specific ways that I seem to be receiving this guidance that makes me wonder.

What's more pressing is that the situation I find myself in currently is the fourth in the iteration since Gullveig started to show up in my meditations and my dreams.  I've always put a lot of faith in signs and portents, even if I don't necessarily understand their relevance at the time that they occur.  I've yet to receive a message that I felt was a divinely inspired signal that didn't somehow come to pass, even if it was only in hindsight that it made sense (we all know the "So that's what was..." moment).  And predictably, I don't know what the relevance of Gullveig's thrice-burned heart means to me right now.

In the sagas, Gullveig was burned three times by the Aesir, and reborn three times before becoming the one known as Heid.  How her heart wound up in the woods for Loki to find is unclear to me, but is likely relevant all the same, just in a way that won't necessarily make sense.  It's an odd thing, too, because I really don't associate myself with Loki, except as it relates to him as father of my principal deities.  Even so, I find the image of Loki finding the heart of Gullveig in the woods too full of resonance to overlook.

It's a difficult thing to sort out.  On one hand, the heart could represent my own, burning and burning and burning until reaching the state it needs to be in to find true happiness.  On the other, the heart could represent the heart of the one I'm meant to find, thrice burned and restored with my assistance.  Or it could have another meaning all together that I've yet to sort out.  No matter what the meaning, I'm confident that Gullveig will prove to be a source of wisdom in bringing me to the right outcome.

When Pantheons Collide

I'm going to go over one of the more curious things about working with the deities today.  One of the big things that I've run into, is that different pantheons react very differently and expect very different things from worshipers.

With the ones that I work with, I've gotten very much used to the give-and-take sort of bond that you get from a teacher and student relationship.  The gods show you what they want you to see, or teach you what they want you to know, and then watch as you adapt to it.  But with all of their knowledge, I still have the autonomy and the expectation from the gods of challenging them in return and questioning that knowledge.

In my experience, the Celtic side and the Fomori are the same on this.  There is an expectation that I'm not going to take everything at face value, even when face value is precisely what is right and what is needed.  The Morrigan has a habit of doing this to the point where I only half-heartedly question what she reveals to me, because I know she's not going to pull punches or send a mixed message, it's just not her way of doing things.  With the Fomori, their lessons come more in the form of "adapt or fail", and they usually leave me with a few choices, so it's more of an open-ended approach.

With the Rokkr, on the other hand, it's a little different.  Their lessons are harsher and more sudden, and tend to force a questioning in the form of fight or flight.  Fenrir especially likes to throw the instinctive reaction in my face as a sort of test, forcing me to choose between two options in a sense, because he already knows how I'm going to respond.  Hela is much the same way, but in the sense that she sends me intentionally vague or overly direct signs, and expects me to sort out which ones need to be altered to make sense.

Loki is another matter entirely.  When I'm given a sign by Loki, I never know what part of it to trust, so I question everything, which is ultimately the point with him.  Loki has always played the role of the critical teacher, and expects critical thought in return.  This usually leads me into a downward spiral of over-thinking and over-analyzing every bit of information involved.  If I ever took one of Loki's signs at face value, I'd likely wind up suffering the consequences for months (and, nearly, have).

It all adds up to a very balanced relationship with my gods.  I don't regard them as infallible, and they don't expect me to.  They expect me to question them, they expect me to test them, and they while they expect me to show them a heavy amount of respect, they also expect me to have no hesitation in asserting myself when they intentionally give bad advice.  I've grown very much accustomed to this, so when my meditations lead to me dealing with gods of pantheons that have different... shall we say, management styles... things get a bit interesting.

Of late, I've been dealing more and more with a select handful of deities from the Hellenic pantheon.  I've dealt very little with them in the past, so it was a bit jarring to all of a sudden have this new set of personalities to deal with, especially given their way of interacting with worshipers.  They actually expect worship, and intend to punish the sort of resistance I'm used to giving my own gods.  Needless to say, this has lead to some friction in my meditative travels when a conflict of interest arises.  It's an entirely different set of etiquette.

It's a huge adjustment to go from treating my own gods with a sense of camaraderie and equality, to having to treat strange gods with deference and humility (and leads to some rather entertaining conversations when my gods appear to me in other meditations and pick me apart for acting weak in front of the Greeks).  It's just not a natural transition to make.  I've had to re-train myself in many ways with some of them (those that I actually have respect for), but others... others still get the same treatment that mine get, except with the intention of confrontation.

Whether I want conflict or not, just as with some people, some gods just provoke that response.  With my own gods, it's a sign of respect and kinship.  With gods I have no association with, however, it takes on the form of sarcasm and condescending remarks, if not outright conflict.  In meditation, I've grown used to feeling a sense of personal authority that I likely shouldn't have.  It's a growing pain.