Sigurd Rune

For the record, tonight's nightly rune drawing is Elhaz, the rune associated with both Sigurd and protection. Not sure if this is foreshadowing that the result of my dad's Y-DNA Hg test might be R1a, but it's an interesting coincidence. Stay tuned, although the result will be awhile in coming as I haven't even got the test kit yet.

Taylor Y-DNA Haplogroups

In follow-up to my previous post concerning mtHg U5 associations with Y-DNA haplogroups, the Taylor surname (my father's surname) project at Family Tree DNA lists several potential European Y-haplogroups already identified for males with the surname Taylor.

Celtic

The most common general Y-Hg found is R1b, a Hg associated with European Celts. This Hg is popularly known as Oisin (Sykes) and Ruisko (Oppenheimer).

Anglo-Saxon-Germanic-Fennoscandia

Next in frequency is Y-Hg I. From among the peoples known from my own autosomal DNA results, Y-Hg I is highly associated with Anglo-Saxons, Northern Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland, and to a lesser but still significant degree, with Hungary, Lapland (the Saami), England and the Netherlands. Y-Hg I is known overall as Wodan (Sykes), Ivan (Oppenheimer). Oppenheimer was able to divide this Hg into 3 clear clusters. The two most important are I1 (Ian) and I2 (Ingert) now known as I2b. Both I1 and I2 are found among Taylor men.

Norse-Viking

Also associated frequently with the surname Taylor is Y-Hg R1a, a Norse-Viking Hg popularly known as Sigurd (Sykes) and Rostov (Oppenheimer). R1a is a distant cousin of R1b, and most commonly found from Eastern Europe to India. In Britain (from where my clans most recently are associated) R1a is associated with probable Scandinavian immigration during periods of Viking settlement.

Non-European / Uncommon Y-Hgs

Other Y-Hg associated with the surname Taylor at Family Tree DNA, to a lesser degree than the three above, are (in order of frequency) E1b1a, E1b1b, G2a, J2, J1, two instances of Q1a3a and A, and one instance each of N1c1, and O.

E1b1a, E1b1b, G2a, J2 and J1 are each found more than a few times, but not nearly as much as R1b, I and R1a.

Egyptian Royalty

E1b1a is the Y-Hg of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses III (reigned 1186–1155 BCE), the second pharaoh of Egypt's 20th dynasty.

North Africa - Near East

In the North Wales town of Abergele there is a very high percentage of haplogroup E1b1b1 (33%), which is thought to have dispersed around Europe mainly from the Balkans. This Y-Hg originated in North Africa, Horn of Africa, or nearby areas of the Near East and is thought to have left and migrated from Africa thousands of years ago. E1b1b is popularly known as Eshu (Sykes).

Semitic

Y-Hg J, popularly known as Re (Sykes), is associated with Semitic people from the Middle East, Near East and Northern Africa including Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, Arabs, Turks, ancient Anatolians, southern Mediterraneans, Iranians, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Algeria and the Sinai Peninsula (to name only a few).

J1c3 and J2a are the Y-Hgs associated with the Kohanim of Jewish Tradition. There is one J2a4h2 found in the Taylor surname project from an individual in Poland. All of the other Taylor J1's and J2's are not further described beyond being simply J1 or J2.

Jewish-German

G2a originated in the Middle East and is found in Jewish men and has also been found in a 7th- century CE high-status tomb in Ergolding, Bavaria, Germany.

English Taylor Y-Hgs

Y-Hgs of Taylor men from England (my most recent European country of origin) in the Family Tree DNA project are R1b, R1a, I1, I2, E (not defined further), E1b1b, G2a, J2 and Q1a3a (American Indian).

Taking all of this together, the probability is that my father's English Taylor Y-Hg will most likely be Celtic R1b, Germanic I or Norse-Viking R1a, but the other Y-Hgs remain a possibility.

U5 Y-DNA Correlates - Norse R1a, Anglo-Saxon Danish I and Baltic N1c1

At Ancestry.com we are provided with an updated distribution map for mtDNA haplogroup U5 (see above) and informed that

Haplogroup U5 was the most common maternal lineage among European hunter-gatherers, not just during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, but until much later in North and Northeast Europe, notably with the Sami people. U5 is absent from Southwest Asia and very low in most of the Middle East, where its presence could be attributed to foreign invasions and settlements from the Bronze Age onwards (Hittites, Indo-Iranians, Phrygians, Armenians, Greeks, etc.).

U5 correlates mostly with Y-DNA haplogroups I, N1c1 and R1a.

On another Ancestry.com page and at Family Tree DNA, we are informed more about the ethnicity correlates of these Y-DNA haplogroups:

Hg I is Anglo-Saxon/Danish.

Hg N1c1 is Baltic with 5 subclades as follows:

1) North European Subclade (Z1936+,Z1935+)
2) North-Baltic Subclade (VL29+,L1022+)
3) South-Baltic Subclade (L550+,L1025+)
4) Scandinavian II (L550+,L1025-)
5) Ugric Subclade (Z1936+,L1034+)

Hg R1a is Norse Viking.

Celtic Y-DNA tends to be R1b.

Just ordered the Y-DNA test for my dad - can't wait to see the results!

Reflections for the New Year

My personal spiritual practice as a witch is all about my ancestors, those who have come before and those who will come after me. As a witch of primarily Northern-Northwestern European ancestry, most of my work involves these genetic ancestors of mine. But not all - some of my Northern European ancestors found refuge in Northern Africa during the height of the last Ice Age. Today, the modern North African Berber tribe are my genetic cousins, being those who descended from the common interaction of my ancient Northern European ancestors with indigenous North Africans (the Saami of Northern Scandinavia, my motherline, and the North African Berber tribe all share a relatively recent common ancestor - our shared motherline split about 9000 years ago - a group who would become the Saami returned to Northern Europe after the Ice Sheet retreated, while some stayed behind in Africa and became the Berbers.) A few modern Africans in Nigeria also share this motherline ancestry with those from my motherline, the Saami and the Berbers.

In my own ancestor work, I do not neglect the African origins for our species, homo sapiens sapiens, in Africa, even as I also honor my ancient archaic Eurasian human ancestors (including Neanderthals and Denisovans) - all of these human lines contributed to who I am today. I honor them all.

The products you find at mt shoppe Witchcrafts Artisan Alchemy reflect my own ancestral work and seek in spirit to honor all of my ancestors. The mixing of Northern European (and North American Cumberland Gap) and African ancestry is currently reflected in my Hoodoo offerings. In 2014, I will be adding a few products to reflect the Berber African tradition specifically, as well as a few Sufi offerings to honor my ancient ancestors whose ancestral branches can still be found today in some of the Arabic peoples. My kabbalistic offerings honor my ancient ancestors with ancestral branches which can still be found today among those of Hungarian Jewish descent in both Hungary and Israel.

Today I reflect on my roots, the soils from which my clans sprouted, the branches and leaves through which we find individuality, and the stars among which we will ever-live.

Hail the ancestors!

Teasing Out My Indigenous Roots

Indigenous and modern day native British Islanders have a strong genetic link to ancient Basques (who came to the British Isles from Iberia in Southwest Europe) -

So, based on the overall genetic perspective of the British, it seems that Celts, Belgians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Normans were all immigrant minorities compared with the Basque pioneers, who first ventured into the empty, chilly lands so recently vacated by the great ice sheets.

but even though my most recent European ancestors came from England, my genetic link to the ancient Basques is relatively not so great, making it unlikely that the British Isles is the indigenous home of the bulk of my own European ancestors. Instead, I seem to be genetically more related to "immigrant minorities" of the British Isles - namely, to the Celts, Belgians, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings and Normans.

My autosomal STR genetic deep ancestry test results support this, indicating that I am deeply more heavily Scandinavian (Sweden, Norway and other Fennoscandia countries), Celtic, Belgic and Germanic, with my U5b1b1 genetic motherline distinctly indigenous to arctic northern Scandinavia. My chromosome painting is also predominantly Northern European.

So, it seems clear to me that the bulk of my ancestors were likely not indigenous natives of the British Isles, but rather were native to Scandinavia and also to the Celtic-Germanic lands of continental Europe - groups who then migrated to the British Isles and subsequently admixed with the Basque-sourced native population there (as I do have some Basque genetic ancestry, but much less relative to my Scandinavian-Celtic-Germanic ancestry).

Event Horizon

In follow-up to my previous entry reporting on a dream (Wyrd Weaver) I had about a week ago, where I wrote in part:

I sat down in the same place at the table and stuck my right index finger into the patterns of the table and made the one little adjustment. I immediately found myself on the northern long side of the table sitting by the teaching spirit. I realized that there were 12 lives apportioned to me in this cosmic cycle. In the room of the table, I was sitting between my eighth and ninth life. My eighth life was past, my current life was ninth.

Rereading through one of my rune books (Alu - An Adavnced Guide to Operative Runology by Edred Thorsson) tonight, I came across this (discussing the fourth of four elements of radical operative runology as a system of meta-communication) which speaks perfectly to the excerpt of my dream noted above:

The event horizon is that liminal space whence phenomena enter the world from an unmanifested state. The unmanifest becomes manifest. Operations of magic can be conducted entirely within the manifest universe ... however, another form of operation causes changes in the pre- or unmanifest world - before this phenomenological feed enters the physical realm. To communicate with this unmanifest - or runic - realm requires the highest form of art and science - and oftentimes luck. But this is where the most miraculous changes can be effected. This operation requires a form of time travel - because it is from the realm of the "past" (Urðr) whence these phenomena arise in our lives - he who learns to condition the past can control the future.

In my dream, I traveled to the liminal space between the past and the present to make a change, conditioning the past to control the future. This dream exemplifies an event horizon within the context of a magical operation of consciousness.

Wyrd Weaver

I dreamt two dreams.

I and two others were gently but hurriedly thrust into a small conference room with a conference table in the middle of it. (Relative to my field of forward perception with the northern direction being the direction of my first gaze) I was initially sitting on the southern long end of the table, as were the others. A teaching spirit sat across from us.

In the surface of the tabletop were patterns of star stuff, cosmic patterns - patterns born of orlog, patterns of wyrd. We each saw our own wyrd. I immediately recognized intimately as part of the Visceral Seeing of my Being, that everything in my lives was created by myself, even so much as the way I looked in each life, even the brace I wore on my back in this life as a teenager. I softly wept with joy. I was indeed the mistress of my life.

I was also joyful that I had been blessed with the opportunity that most people don't have - the opportunity to remember, to be wise.

I saw one little thing I wanted to adjust in the pattern from my previous life. I got up and went through the eastern door back into my past life to do that, but when I arrived, the past was being eaten up like in the movie The Langoliers. I couldn't make the adjustment that way, so I returned to the room with the conference table.

I sat down in the same place at the table and stuck my right index finger into the patterns of the table and made the one little adjustment. I immediately found myself on the northern long side of the table sitting by the teaching spirit. I realized that there were 12 lives apportioned to me in this cosmic cycle. In the room of the table, I was sitting between my eighth and ninth life. My eighth life was past, my current life was ninth. This life was tasked with making ready for my next life, which I felt was going to be a very important, regally powerful life in the cosmic scheme of things. This is why I was given the opportunity in this life to make the small adjustment I needed to make (the need stemming from some small thing in my previous life) in preparation for the role I would have in my next life. I was preparing myself for power, power born and supported by innate upright justice, sovereignty and rightful inheritance.

I woke up, fell back asleep, and dreamt again.

A small group from my past life had come through into this life and was trying to steal my power, but I escaped. I felt that these enemies had been enemies of my royal family for ages and ages. These enemies had followed me through lifetimes seeking to steal my family's royal power, but each time I escaped. They were always one step behind, always too little too late.

Their fate has been set, this life is sealing it. My next life will be the doom of them.

I woke up.

The Caucasus - Possible Birthplace of the Human Species Line Leading to Modern Humans

With the new discovery of Homo erectus georgicus (the earliest human fossil found to date outside of Africa and the earliest Homo erectus yet found anywhere), the birth of the human species (via homo erectus) may be rewritten by science to have occurred about 1.8 mya in the Caucasus (as opposed to in Africa) from a species who then migrated to Africa (although I'm not sure how Homo habilis fits into the new picture). Homo erectus is the first human known by science to have used controlled fire - this scientific fact ties in perfectly with the ancient mythology of the Caucasus which tells us that it is here (in the Caucasus) where Prometheus gave humankind the gift of fire. The control of fire by humans is claimed by some scientists to have possibly occurred as early as 1.7 mya - close to the dating of Homo erectus georgicus fossil remains in Dmanisi, Georgia. I'm anxious to see what new discoveries the future holds to tell us about human origins, both archeologically and genetically.

Meet the Midgard Serpent

I had a strange dream early this morning. The dream is associated with the rune Naudh, as this was the rune I drew as before going to bed (a nightly ritual of mine).

I traveled to Germany. It wasn't modern mundane Germany. The land had a mythical feeling, enchanted, magical - like a fairytale (not the light and fluffy-love kind of fairies at all, but awesomely real and powerful). I was with a small group of people.

There was some sort of olympic-style game or test going to happen - just one test for four contenders who would choose take up the challenge. I was one of the four - both chosen by my timeless people yet also destined and born to do this. Nevertheless, the choice to actually take up the challenge was mine, as it was similarly for the other three. It was a test which would liberate the people somehow - it was a test for a collective destiny - the four of us were like representatives of the people, heroes sort of. Like when an army will send out its best warriors to fight the best warriors of the opposition. We were the four best spiritual warriors of our people. Our opposition was four forms of a Great Monster.

The four formed Great Monster lived in hidden waters. There was a pool with four lanes containing a portion of the hidden waters in it like an olympic pool where swimming races take place (except that each lane was its own pool separated from the waters of the other lanes by pool walls). The closest lane contained opaque white water, then red, then blue, then black (an incredibly black black). Each of us was naturally drawn to our destined lane. My lane was the black lane.

The test was to get into the water (each in our chosen lane) and try to keep the water of the lane pure of its own particular color - if any one of the four of us could do this, we could defeat the Great Monster. If all four of us failed, the Great Monster would be unleashed upon the whole people throughout all the worlds.

The four of us were standing at poolside consulting with the people - discussing and debating whether or not we should take up the challenge at this time in history. Perhaps this wasn't the time, some people were questioning the wisdom of summoning the Great Monster right now, at this time. I wasn't anxious to get into the black water myself either - this was a dangerous thing to do for all of us. I didn't take the challenge lightly. I would abide by the decision of the people, whatever it was.

The decision was made to go ahead and to take up the challenge. The two destined for the white and red waters got into the water each of his/her own lane. If the waters didn't bleed into one another, it was good. If the waters bled together through the walls, then the two failed. We watched.

Red water started seeping into the white lane, and white water began seeping in to the red lane - this was not good. This was failure. There was no time to waste now - the Great Monster stirred beneath the base of the world, underneath the pool, we could feel it coming. I jumped into my black lane (the blue lane remained empty), I had to try to reverse the failure.

I stood up tall in the midst of the black water, facing the Great Wall like a warrior, ready to face down the Great Monster which had been stirred up by the mixing of the white and red waters of the first two lanes. The Great Monster rose up from Great Sea which lay beyond the Great Wall which separated our world from Otherworld chaos. The Great Monster was black as night, a huge sea serpent, like Jörmungandr. The water in my lane remained pure black - neither did the black water bleed its color into any of the other lanes. I had succeeded in containing the power of the water.

The Great Serpent looked at me and cracked the hint of a happy smile.

I woke up.

Related -
My Birth Rune
Ior

Ior is a river fish and yet it always feeds on land;
it has a fair abode encompassed by water, where it lives in happiness.
[Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem] 

Kings & Queens Who Share My Genetic Motherline

My mtDNA genetic motherline haplogroup is U5b - a haplogroup known to be shared by many historical kings and queens of Germany, Scotland, Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia, France and Spain.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/25236-Haplogroups-of-European-kings-and-queens

Kings & Queens of Scotland

James III (1451-1488) => U5b* (mtDNA)

Kings & Queens of Germany

Elisabeth of Bavaria (c. 1227-1273) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Elizabeth of Carinthia (1262-1312) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Frederick the Fair, Duke of Austria and King of Germany (1289-1330) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Joanna of Bavaria, Queen of Germany and Bohemia (c. 1362–1386) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Albert II of Germany (1397-1439) => U5b* (mtDNA)

Margraves, Dukes & Archdukes of Austria

Rudolf I of Habsburg, Duke of Austria and Styria, King of Bohemia, and titular King of Poland (1282-1307) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Frederick I the Fair, Duke of Austria and Styria, and King of Germany (1289-1330) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Leopold I of Habsburg, Duke of Austria and Styria (1290-1326) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Albert II of Habsburg, Duke of Austria (1298-1358) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Otto I of Habsburg, Duke of Austria (1301-1339) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Albert II, King of Germany and Archduke of Austria (1397-1439) => U5b* (mtDNA)

Dukes/Kings & Queens of Bavaria

Louis II, Duke of Bavaria (1229-1294) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Henry XIII, Duke of Bavaria (1235-1290) => U5b* (mtDNA)
William II, Duke of Bavaria, Count of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut (1365–1417) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Albert II (1369-1397) => U5b* (mtDNA)
John III, Duke of Bavaria-Straubing, Count of Holland and Hainaut (1374/76-1425) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Louis IX, Duke of Bavaria-Landshut (1417-1479) => U5b* (mtDNA)

Dukes/Kings & Queens of Bohemia

Henry VI of Carinthia (c. 1270–1335) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Rudolf I of Habsburg (1282-1307) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Joanna of Bavaria (c. 1362–1386) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Albert II of Germany (1397-1439) => U5b* (mtDNA)

Kings & Queens of France

Francis I (1494-1547) => U5b* (mtDNA)
Henry IV (1553-1610) => R1b-Z381 (Y-DNA) U5b* (mtDNA)

Kings & Queens of Spain

Philip I of Castile, King of Castile and ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands => U5b* (mtDNA)

The Raven Banner

The Raven Banner

One of the most famous, yet least-known symbols of the Viking Age was the Raven Banner.  ... A whole host of misconceptions exist about the Raven Banner. Many people assume that this was "the Viking flag", universally flown by all Vikings everywhere. This is not so: the Raven Banner is always described as being the personal banner of a specific Viking chieftain or leader. ... 

Read more about THE RAVEN BANNER by clicking here.

Continuity of Consciousness: Mystery Initiation & The Teachings of My Ancestors

Huggin and Munnin - The Ravens of Thought and Memory

I'm always searching for new information which pertains to my own experience of preincarnate memory and thought, a continuity of personal consciousness which stretches back before the previous event of cosmic Ragnarok. I found this (in discussion of what happens to the various parts of the human soul following physical death) in the book Aegishjalmur, the Book of Dragon Runes by Michael Kelly:

Now we begin to examine the invisible parts of the human complex, such as the hugh and the myne, thought and memory. These certainly don't remain in the physical shell, they can be presumed to depart to the higher or lower realms on Yggdrasil [the cosmological Tree of Life in Norse tradition - my addition], along with other invisible parts of the self. I suspect in most cases that these functions then remain in the immaterial realms, along with the part of the soul which is truly transcendent and immortal. Certainly, when the soul is reborn into a new life, it brings very little of the previous life's thoughts and memories back with it, though occasionally something may be carried across. I have a hunch that the more coherent and integrated the personality is within life, the more cohesion and direct memory there will be between incarnations. This continuity of conscious identity and memory is one of the highest aims of Initiation.

Hail my Ancestors! Hail my Ancestral Tradition! This teaching of my Mighty Ancestors is simply awesome and spot-on with regard to my own experience. I was born initiated into the Tradition of my Ancestors!

All In The Family

In the past, I have conversed with a mouse, through an ancestral soul connection we both share.

The last common ancestor of mice and humans (base of the clade Euarchontoglires) lived about 100 million years ago. Then my family line branched off into the primates.

Long ago, a family of creatures existed within whom dwelt the potential to become both mice and humans.

No First Human Creature

There was no first human creature.

Human bodies evolved from earlier lifeforms, so there was no creaturely "first" man or "first" woman human being. There was no point in time, from a biological evolutionary point of view, where we could identify this creature to be the first homo sapiens sapiens creature (irregardless of its gender), while its parents were of some other species not belonging to the same species as the offspring.

Evolution is an incredibly slow process, homo sapiens didn't just pop out onto the earth scene one day, exclaiming "we have arrived!" Indeed, homo sapiens sapiens are physically made of at least 3 species of human being (and most likely more) - homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and homo sapiens denisova - so we can't even really define "human being" as a creature belonging to our own particular species within the genus homo.

Homo is the genus of great apes that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, possibly having evolved from australopithecine ancestors, with the appearance of Homo habilis. Several species, including Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus, and Australopithecus afarensis, have been proposed as the direct ancestor of the Homo lineage. Each of these species have morphological features that align them with Homo, but there is no consensus on which actually gave rise to Homo, assuming it was not an as-yet undiscovered species. [source - Homo]

Assuming for the sake of argument that homo sapiens sapiens arose through a single species-line of hominin ancestry (which is highly unlikely) and that that species-line was Australopithecus sediba (the most likely candidate known at this time), I must also point out that even though these direct-line ancestral creatures might be classified as something other than human, I think that it is very dangerous and foolish to minimize the contribution of "non-human" ancestors to our humanity. Indeed, these non-human ancestors form the very foundation for everything we are as physically incarnate creatures.

My thinking is that the soul is never fully incarnate in any body, including our human ones, such that even our non-human ancestors contained our "human" consciousness inasmuch fullness as the creature's body was able to tolerate - consequently, even our non-human ancestors were human in a manner of speaking. They are us, we are them.

Leikn Likes To Play

Viktor Ryberg (Our Fathers Godsaga) claims that the true name of the giantess/goddess Hel of Norse mythology is Leikin.

Leikin (althernatively, Leikn) is a name related to the Old Icelandic word leika, "to play".

I like the interpretation of the name Leikn as associated with "playing" - there is joy in playing. I personally particularly like playing with thinking. I actually wrote a poem about this too 15-20 years ago, so this name fits Hel I think:

Dangerous Mind

what within me
drives my need to know
why
why this why in my mind

curious, thrilled, excited
tired, exhausted, spent

percolating always
analyzing always
skeptical always

playing with thinking
flying away

why this why in my mind
so I search
to discover

Heidrun

In follow-up to my previous post, a friend on a heathen forum I belong to shared this information:

The only feminine early beings of Heathenism are Audhumbla and Heidrun.

Stretching from Helheim to Valhalla ... bear with me as I lay out the facts.

Heidrun - Derived from Old Norse heiðr meaning "heath". In Norse mythology Heidrun was a she-goat who would eat the leaves from the tree of life and produce mead in her udder.

Heidrun makes all the mead for rejoicing warriors in Valhalla.

Heid means heath - an area of land that is covered with grass and small shrubs

Heid can also mean bright.

Run, of course, refers to the Mother Rune.

So, Heidrun combines all of these meanings.

As this all pertains to the Runic All-Mother, I think that (taking together all of the above meanings), my Dagaz rune poem (describing my preincarnate journey of consciousness and experience of an event that occurred 5 billion years ago through the field of the sun into the making of the earth) links me to this awesome creature of Germanic folklore. So, Heidrun, in my experience, tells of the journey of consciousness through a field of topographic brilliance (Heid) into the secret (run) making of the primeval earth (a heath - a land covered with grass and shrubs).

The video from the previous post describing the birth of the earth from the debris of a newborn sun:



My Dagaz Rune poem I wrote 15-20 years ago:

first rhythms ever plunge, eternal hosts driven into life
drawing through a field of topographic brilliance
where judgment lovingly flows, churning out whole stones
resting against asymmetries trying, like diamonds in chaos
proto-perception foams, over annihilating operations
and from it, dark bursts of lucidity finely entwine
coarse grains of almost something, almost yet sufficient
the silent rush of yet nothing slides, wildly as percolating pivots
diligently thread through it, casting clarity
upon myriads, hard pauses startle into vision
projecting arrays without mass, strings of confluency
impressing discovery, a shadowy tail-end lingers
between depths of opposite observation
iterating embraces of many meanings like quasi-quanta
gathering functions about the head and, and
spinning spectra, pushing forward, yearning toward home
not knowing, yet only knowing
as some featureless reach edging edges stretches out
the magnetic sweet dance
where divisions collapse like crystal caves
softly sprinkling the belly of the night divine
with bytes of thoughtbare kisses
extending the glorious field of apprehension

There is no doubt in my mind that great mysteries of consciousness are hidden in the myths of our folk. 

This insight is offered by another friend on the same forum:

Runic magic being that of consciousness, and intellectual knowledge -- the secrets hidden in the worlds that can only be discerned through conscious thought and processing. 

Indeed, it is so.

Daughter of the Sun - A Journey of Consciousness

The beginning of the video below, describing the birth of the earth from the debris of a newborn sun, aligns with one of my preincarnate memories described in the old poem (also below) which I wrote about 15-20 years ago. The imagery in the video's opening particularly and the imagery in my memory speak to my journey of remembering consciousness through this primeval event.



My Dagaz Rune Poem (a preincarnate memory)

first rhythms ever plunge, eternal hosts driven into life
drawing through a field of topographic brilliance
where judgment lovingly flows, churning out whole stones
resting against asymmetries trying, like diamonds in chaos
proto-perception foams, over annihilating operations
and from it, dark bursts of lucidity finely entwine
coarse grains of almost something, almost yet sufficient
the silent rush of yet nothing slides, wildly as percolating pivots
diligently thread through it, casting clarity
upon myriads, hard pauses startle into vision
projecting arrays without mass, strings of confluency
impressing discovery, a shadowy tail-end lingers
between depths of opposite observation
iterating embraces of many meanings like quasi-quanta
gathering functions about the head and, and
spinning spectra, pushing forward, yearning toward home
not knowing, yet only knowing
as some featureless reach edging edges stretches out
the magnetic sweet dance
where divisions collapse like crystal caves
softly sprinkling the belly of the night divine
with bytes of thoughtbare kisses
extending the glorious field of apprehension

"first rhythms ever plunge, eternal hosts driven into life" ... 5 billion years ago

Rethinking Out Of Africa

http://www.edge.org/conversation/rethinking-out-of-africa

Species

In that place between waking and sleeping, when I began awaking this morning, I had a vision of myself. I had piercing coal black eyes - like vampires oftentimes have in vampire movies. It seems its settled then, when it comes to the question of my own occult species, I am of the vampire species as opposed to of the werewolf species. And given my eyes were coal black, I'd guess that implies that I'm a hungry vampire.

The Antiquity of Blonde Hair

Case reopened.

Humans today are a mix of several species from the Homo genus - at least 3 (Homo sapiens, Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo denisova) and probably more when all is said and known.

A graphic from this article [New DNA Evidence ...] shows that linkage between modern Melanesians (who frequently exhibit blonde hair) and archaic Denisovans occurred around 40,000 years ago.

This article [Blonde Melanesians ...] provides some additional interesting information on the antiquity of Oceanic blonde hair, asking the question, "is this trait an independent occurrence of de-pigmentation in Oceania, or was it due to introgression of European alleles?"

The author (Razib Khan) answers his own question:

First, one must note that this is not an isolated feature in Oceania. Rather, blondism crops up in the Solomon Islands, in New Guinea, as well as among some Australian desert groups. This in itself should make us skeptical of the model of [modern human - my addition] European admixture. Additionally, blue eyes, which exhibits a higher frequency in Europeans than blonde hair, is not similarly common in these populations.

Though some scientific studies have reported Melanesian blonde hair to be tied to a recent selected mutation in the TYRP1 pigmentation related locus found among Melanesians, it doesn't close the case that blondism in Melanesians is also linked to deep ancestry rather than solely to a population-specific mutation in the TYRP1 locus (a mutation which is not found in Europeans).

 Khan goes on to write:

But there’s a very good reason I never expected there to be recent selection driving this anyhow: Australian Aboriginals sometimes manifest blonde hair, and the best genetic data suggests separation from Melanesians of at least 10,000 years. Additionally, the Solomon Islands were not part of Sahul, so that’s a conservative estimate. We don’t know if the Aboriginals have the same TRYP1 mutation, but there’s the same tendency toward dark skin and light hair amongst them. It also seems rather suspicious to me that the highest frequency of blonde hair outside of West Eurasia is all amongst Oceanian populations, who are phylogenetically a distinct clade [as are European populations - my addition].

What I am suggesting then is that this pigmentation mutation is an old feature of the Oceanian populations, on the order of tens of thousands of years. 

... and what I am suggesting is that the "tens-of-thousands of years old feature" found amongst Oceanic groups (whatever specific mutation or mutations is are responsible for overt phenotypic expression of the trait) is indeed connected to their shared Denisovan ancestry (linking these populations around 40,000 years ago before the Melanesians and the Aboriginal Australians split genetically around 10,000 years ago).

Flipping Genetics!

As surprised as I was to learn that my Denisovan ancestry was greater than my Neanderthal ancestry despite my overwhelming Homo sapien European genetic ancestry, it is equally surprising to me to learn that modern East Asians typically have more Neanderthal DNA than do modern Europeans, despite that Neanderthals were largely concentrated in Europe (though their range extended into Asia).

This is flipping weird!

According to David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and a member of the research team, the new DNA sequence also shows that Native Americans and people from East Asia have more Neanderthal DNA, on average, than Europeans. [Source]

H. Denisova not an H. Erectus Lineage?

Both modern humans and neanderthals are believed to be human lineages of Homo heidelbergensis via Homo erectus. There is hot debate within the scientific community as to the origin of the Homo denisova species - and there is evidence that the Denisovan species is too old to be of the H. heidelbergensis lineage and that the Denisovan species of human may be a lineage of human not within the H. erectus evolutionary line (as modern humans and neanderthals are thought to be).

Southeast Asian Genetic Admixture of Denisovans with Modern Humans

In follow-up to an earlier post, this scientific lecture reports that Denisovan genetic admixture with modern humans took place in Southeast Asia.

The Mysterious Guti

The ancient Indo-European homeland has been postulated to be connected to an ancient Near Eastern people called the Guti. Interesting to me, my own deep genetic ancestry (as discovered in my ancestral DNA results from DNA Tribes) is in Sweden, where Guti is an old Swedish-Nordic name on the surface meaning "Gotlander".

The Mystery of Archaic Denisovan DNA in Me

Why am I Denisovan?

I've been a bit puzzled by my Geno 2.0 archaic hominin genetic ancestry result which reported that I have 2.3% Denisovan genetic ancestry - greater than my Neanderthal genetic ancestry which weighs in at a mere 1.9%. This particularly perplexes me in light of the fact that my autosomal genetic ancestry results indicated that I am significantly and overwhelmingly of European stock (97% - 100% in most studies). Given the overwhelming European-ness of my genetic profiles, coupled with the fact that in the scientific literature archaic Denisovan genes have been found to exist (so far) only in modern populations of Aboriginal Australians and the Melanesians of Papua New Guinea, I didn't expect to have any Denisovan ancestry.

Then comes Teutonic me, with 2.3% Denisovan genetic ancestry. As a daughter of Europe (mostly Northern and Northwestern Europe even more specifically), I expected to have much more European Neanderthal in me and no Asian-Australian Denisovan. But surprise! - I have more Denisovan than Neanderthal! So, what gives with this?

Comparable with others of primarily Celtic-Germanic ancestry (matching the modern German and British reference populations), Geno 2.0 did report that I do have some genetic ancestry admixture from Southeast Asia. Papua New Guinea, home to the Pacific Islanders known as the Melanesians, is in East Asia - so this gets me closer to an answer as to why I have Denisovan DNA.

Like some of Nordic descent, I was born with white blonde hair, though it darkened to a dark blonde as I became an adult. Though I don't have blue eyes, my father does. So, it's clear that some of my ancestors had blonde hair and blue eyes stereotypical of Nordic types.

Interestingly, like me and like some others of Nordic ancestry, blonde hair is also found in high frequency among Melanesian children - those very same children with Denisovan genes. Like me.

So, while it may be that my Homo sapiens sapiens homeland may be Europe by way of Africa and the Near East, it may also be that my Denisovan ancestry homeland is in Australia - maybe that's why so many modern Brits live and love in Australia - our ancestral folksoul (Britain is one my ancestral homelands) is tied to that land as well.

Protective Encounters with Wights of the Land

Over the course of my life, I've had several experiences with land wights, most very good - like the time when I was a little girl alone in the woods behind my house and fell asleep in a cove-like place by the stream in the bright warm arms of the spirits of the place. I'll never forget this one, ever.

One oddly interesting and powerfully dangerous one though I actually experienced in parallel with another person - my ex-husband during the early days of our marriage, probably about 30 years ago. We were out fishing together at night at the local state park like we did sometimes. We had set up our fishing gear, lawn chairs, started a campfire and had just settled down to do some fishing. We had our lines cast and were waiting. But I began to feel very very uncomfortable, as if something very dangerous and deadly was watching us from somewhere in the woods. There were no unusual noises, just the normal noises one hears in the woods by a river. Those normal animal noises were undisturbed, so I figured there wasn't a person or predator lurking about. I tried to disregard the anxiety, but it soon built up into a panic, I jumped up out of my lawn chair and said, "I think we should call it a night." My ex-husband readily agreed, jumping up out of his chair almost at the same time I did to help me pack up. We rushed, both of us, getting our stuff back into the back of the red and white VW van we had. We threw the stuff in (not normal for either of us) and just as quickly jumped into our seats and locked our vehicle doors (also not normal to us). We did all this in a hurried rush, without saying one word to one another, both of us in an unspoken frightful panic. As soon as our doors on the van were locked, we faced each other - "did you feel that?" I asked my ex-husband. He simply said "Yes." And we sped down the long dirt road out of there, every once in awhile I turned and looked out the rear window fully expecting to see a werewolf or something chasing us. Neither or us ever saw anything or heard anything unusual. We simply had some kind of encounter with something very dangerous.

I've been to this park many times over the decades and only once after that did I ever feel anything similar - I was driving through the park alone in my car about 2 years ago and it was there again and didn't want me there. It (though I never saw "it", I only perceived its presence) followed me as I drove until I was out of the park.

I also felt the presence of this entity once not in the park but near a house I lived in (which was also near the woods) as a young mother, sometime around the same time of the park experience with my ex-husband. I was at home alone with my 3 young children while my ex-husband was working at an evening job. I felt the same dangerous presence (or perhaps, warning of danger) outside - clearly I needed to get my children and myself out of the house NOW. I packed us up in my car in a rush and left and didn't go back until my husband had gotten home. When I went back, the danger had passed and all was well again. The feeling of a presence of dreadful danger was gone.

These are only a few examples of my experiences with the wights of the land.

Dragon Unicorn

Kirin / Qilin

In follow-up to a dream I had and posted this past May (Beyond the Boundaries of the Universe - The Master Game - Able), a friend from a forum I participate in just answered my query as to whether or not Sleipnir is ever portrayed as a dragon in folk myth with this awesome tidbit:

What you've described actually IS an existing creature of Chinese/Japanese mythology called a Kirin (Japanese) or Qilin (Chinese). It is considered one of the three most powerful creatures in Chinese/Japanese mythology, along with dragons, and phoenixes. While the dragon is usually associated with water, and the phoenix with fire, the kirin is associated with thunder and lightning. It is usually depicted as a bearded deer, or horse like animal, with a (usually) curved horn (the Chinese version usually has two horns) and dragon scales instead of horse hair. It has been affectionately referred to as "The Japanese Unicorn", and has been said to be a guardian, and omen of extreme good luck for virtuous people.

I am really excited to discover this. Since so much of our own Northern European lore has been lost through the ages, perhaps this evidence from Oriental lore, coupled with my own dream, makes it conceivable then that there is some similar archetype in our own native mythology - and importantly, that it is recoverable!

Runedance Through Fire and Ice

In follow-up to my previous entry (Oskapt - Fire and Ice), after posting that entry, my nightly rune drawing before retiring to bed was Hagalaz (my birth rune). The previous night's rune drawing had been Thurisaz. Both were drawn using my apple wood Elder Futhark runes.

This is an interesting synchronicity with the question I pondered in last night's post (a question contemplated between Thurisaz and Hagalaz rune drawings).

Kveldulf Gundarsson writes in Teutonic Magic:

Hagalaz represents the unchanging structure or set pattern of the Nine Worlds in the tree Yggdrasill through which all living wights move and through which energies the runic energies flow - the unity of "organic" and "inorganic" ...

Hagalaz is the great controller and focuser of energies, as written forth in Havamal, where it is spoken of as a rune with which to control the wild might of fire - raw active power ...

The main effect of Hagalaz on the individual life is to bring you into unity with the universal pattern , which often appears as a mighty and seemingly woe-working breakage of everyday life ...

Above all, Hagalaz is the rune of completion and bringing into being. It may be seen as the passive form of Thurisaz, and in another sense its antithesis. Thurisaz melds fire and ice to create force which breaks down form; Hagalaz use ice and fire to create that form which holds and guides force ...

Thurisaz is more active, more in the way of fire; Hagalaz is unmoving, more in the way of ice.

Amazing synchronicity with my life, both within the past two nights, and in this old poem I wrote (about 15 years ago describing one of my preincarnate memories) and have posted before on my blog and websites (lastly here):

first rhythms ever plunge, eternal hosts driven into life
drawing through a field of topographic brilliance
where judgment lovingly flows, churning out whole stones
resting against asymmetries trying, like diamonds in chaos
proto-perception foams, over annihilating operations
and from it, dark bursts of lucidity finely entwine
coarse grains of almost something, almost yet sufficient
the silent rush of yet nothing slides, wildly as percolating pivots
diligently thread through it, casting clarity
upon myriads, hard pauses startle into vision
projecting arrays without mass, strings of confluency
impressing discovery, a shadowy tail-end lingers
between depths of opposite observation
iterating embraces of many meanings like quasi-quanta
gathering functions about the head and, and
spinning spectra, pushing forward, yearning toward home
not knowing, yet only knowing
as some featureless reach edging edges stretches out
the magnetic sweet dance
where divisions collapse like crystal caves
softly sprinkling the belly of the night divine
with bytes of thoughtbare kisses
extending the glorious field of apprehension

Oskapt - Fire and Ice

On a forum I frequent, it was asked:

In The Saga of the Volsungs translated by Jesse L. Byock there is an interaction where Sigurd said: "What is the name of that island where Surt and the Aesir will mix together their blood?" Fafner answered: "It is called Oskapt, the uncreated." Does anyone have any insight into Oskapt?

This is an interesting idea - I like to speculate about interesting ideas.

Google translates oskapt as "terrible." I've also seen the word translated as "unshapen" and seeming derivatives of the word are associated with the idea of something which may not be of the normatively experienced natural worlds (that is, "unnatural") - so, oskapt may refer to a deeper or alternative level of nature which precedes mental, psychological or material constructions. In other mystical systems (from my learning as a kabbalist primarily), "terrible" often is a term applied to a level of Being "above" (in terms of extension into manifest reality) the created worlds, a correspondence which is in agreement with the Germanic ideas of some place which is both "uncreated" and "terrible." In kabbalah, the "terrible" universe is called atzilut, or universe of divine emanation from which creation is forthspoken via utterance, then shaped and then made manifest. Taking the correspondence further, it may be that the "place" of oskapt corresponds to some high unmanifest place from which that which is to become manifest first comes forth, if that makes sense. It's interesting to me the the word oskapt could be divided into "os" ("mouth") and "kapt" (or West Germanic Dutch "kopt", a form of koppen - like German "kopf") which can pertain to both the head in general (and to the crown of the head more specifically), making "oskapt" pertain to the "mouth of the head" - this is congruent with the idea of forthspeaking.

So, it seems to me that this island "Oskapt" may refer to a "place" within the Folksoul within which we all mix with one another as a unified community before extending out as individuals (or tribal families of individuals like soul families) into created reality.

Another interesting correspondence is that in kabbalah, the "terrible" place is also called the place of "terrible ice" (despite that it exists in the fiery Universe of Atzilut), so Oskapt may also be an "island" of "Niflheim within Muspelheim" in Germanic cosmology.

Preincarnate Memory & Neanderthal Predation Theory

The two videos below explain Neanderthal Predation Theory (neanderthal predation powered evolution of primitive humans into modern humans who became overwhelmingly distinct from other hominid primates and turned the tables on the once apex hunters of Eurasia). This theory powerfully aligns with one of my preincarnate memories as described below the videos. The sheer horror and terror of my experience as an ancient human hominid I never forgot, still to this day ... even the fact that I had no sound-words with which to express my utter terror (as this prehistoric period of time was before articulate human language had developed) ...





Repost - Thurisaz Rune Poem

This is a poem I wrote about 15 years ago attempting to describe one of the preincarnate memories I have carried with me all of my life, now understood within the context of Neanderthal Predation Theory.
 
The Thorn

from the mind inscribed before time in a dreamlike primeval existence
before my life began, at your side, I loved you
set before seeing, witnessing the violent play of creation
rising jagged with twisting thorns ascending toward there
wild and fierce the bloody storm from below, a churning pit of cold fire and coal
dripping with pain torn from earth, cutting edges
raging from a lawless horror, a terror untamed upon the earth
spreading as a plague coming near with powerful fury, iterating screams
reverberating with dysrhythm, the battering melody shattering the noise of silence
in agony melding together, into a cyclone of spiraling shrill despair
hopeless, the sound of an inky blackness, line upon line writing
a writhing scroll, twisted with affliction, death and blood everywhere
below the colorlessness of the sanctuary where I stood, immobile in the sight
testifying, not forgotten, revealing some wordless cry of terror
embedding beyond the throat, becoming chained in the belly
burning my world, descending into the hallowed depths of my heart
with no way to restrain it, its direction of attraction
toward me the knife came to cut
please see me! I am here! I cried without sound - to you as you watched it climb up
as you watched it climb up with some curious, strange fascination
not seeing me, or disregarded, either way, outside your direction of attention
as the rabid destruction erupted up the wall, and all I could do to escape the blade
becoming broken, I turned away, pulling myself in ... only to be thown away
thrown down, as a coarse grain into the only history I ever knew, and I know
what you did, throwing me down to be ripped apart, for those who would destroy me
why do you hate me - still you don't see me, you don't hear me, and you don't care
try as I might to rewrite the story, I cannot forget the truth
and some things can never be fixed

A Cosmological Key Flows Through It

In flowing connection to my previous post, Friday night's rune drawing was Kaun. Last night's rune drawing was Fe. Last night, I dreamt.

Initially, my eye was caught toward watching a news report on the television about a developing story in Texas. As I turned my attention toward the story being reported, I became a disembodied observer watching the events unfold at the scene(s).

Right outside of the Texas town (which was not identified in the dream as any specific town) by the sea on the eastern coast, sinkholes began opening up in the earth, when then, at the bottom of the sinkholes, molten fiery watery yellow orange red lava broke through and oozed up, making pools of lava. The lava sinkholes were coming to town toward a sprawling University campus. Oddly, despite the danger, people were still going and sending their kids to the campus to class, thinking that the lava sinkholes wouldn't really come that far and would stay on the outskirts of town - almost as if they were thinking "the lava wouldn't dare." But, it did dare and I saw a lava sinkhole open up in one empty lab classroom. Then, lava sinkholes began opening up all over the campus.

I woke up.

This dream is not only connected to the dream I had a few nights ago, but to repetitive dreams I've had for decades over the course of my adult life (although it has been many many years since I had the last one before this latest one last night).

In my repetitive dreams like this one, I have either been in my own town (where I went to nursing school) or in the town about 30 miles away (where I went to University to get my degree in research biochemistry) or in the redneck rural area just outside my town's city limits called Grape Creek. In my dreams, I am in these places where lava is breaking through the solid earth (no sinkholes in my repetitive dreams before this one) and I am jumping over the open places using the remaining and moving solid portions of the earth like stepping stones, trying to get to a safe place. Most of the time, I made it to safety, but one time, I was swallowed up by a ocean sized wave of lava near the road which leads to Grape Creek. Though I was swallowed up by it, my consciousness wasn't dissolved in it. That particular dream was quite a long time ago, maybe around 10 years ago (and it was also the last dream I had like this before this latest one).

In my repetitive dreams of lava bursting up through the earth, I have moved it seems from being one trying to avoid the lava myself to one observing it from a distance. Also, the lava itself has moved from the midwest in the heart of the land to a coastal area near the sea.

Both Kaun and Fe are related to fire. All of the dreams are concerned with towns where there are institutions of higher learning (as there was also in the dream from my previous post). There is a water connection in these dreams - Grape Creek is a rural place attached to my town with a fresh water creek flowing through it - this corresponds to the salt sea near the coastal town in this latest dream. Both water and salt are among the eight directional elements (earth, air, fire, water, salt, iron, yeast, venom) in the magical system of Northern Tradition, and both elements are required to sustain organic life. Another distinguishing difference between previous dreams and this one - there were no earthen sinkholes in my previous lava dreams, but there was an ocean sized wave of lava in one of them (from an oceanic sinkhole back through time?)

Hagall - Seed of Solution

Bifrost Bridge

This is going to be a complex post, but I am going to write it as best I can to hopefully illustrate just how elegantly complex the deep mind works.

Last night's rune drawing was Elhaz (Algiz). The previous night's rune drawing was Hagall. Both were drawn in proximity to my newest candle Noble Beast (Gofugt Dyr) listed in my shoppe on Tuesday.

Last night, I dreamt.

I was in a large university science classroom that had five huge chalkboard-screens up at the head of the classroom. Students were challenged to put forth each his or her own theory on the matter at hand. Several students did, and each theory was evaluated together by the class. Then, I accepted the challenge and came up to write my theory out on the boards at the head of the classroom.

I kept writing ... and writing, and writing, until I had the whole faces of all five boards full of equations and graphics and words delineating the details of my theory. The teacher and students were wowed. The teacher requested I put the information on overhead transparencies to be used in the next class, which as soon as asked, I had the completed overhead transparencies in my hand.

I was ok with letting them be used for teaching the next class, but they were my work, so I wanted to take them with me when I left to use them in my continued work. So, I stayed as an observer for the next class and missed my bus home.

Another male student was sitting at a desk near mine, and a second male student at a desk near the first male student near me. We three teamed up as it became known in the classroom that many teachers and other 'government' workers were going to lose their jobs and not get paid in order to grossly overpay the top people in the 'government' (I interpret this to symbolize the overall ruling spiritual powers in an established order of human organization - not as any particular real life human government). It wasn't fair, it wasn't right, it wasn't a JUST flow of resources (reminds me of the hoarding of the Nibelungen treasure).

We three left the classroom as the class finished. I had my overhead transparencies with me. We three headed over to a car to go to our homes, but the car wouldn't start. We needed to rig the car to be able to start before dark, as we couldn't fight the government at the level we were at (and we needed to get the car started to get to where we were going - the next level). So, one of the guys opened up the hood, took out a bag of garbage from underneath the hood of the car, and threw it into the dumpster. The car started and we got in ...

... to a spaceship. We were out in space with our crew working on the project developed from my theory. My theory involved cheap and clean manufacture of a new essentially endless energy that would free up humankind as never before. It was so cheap, clean and abundant that even the poorest could get all they needed. But it made the people in the 'government' angry, as they didn't want this new energy source to become available on earth. They had anticipated that I would work this project out into reality, and had planted a betrayer on our spaceship who was going to sabotage and attempt to destroy our successful endeavor. That betrayer was the second male student who had been sitting near the male student who had been sitting near me.

As the first male student and I discovered this, I found myself thrust back into a car - which promptly got into an accident. I was going to die unless we figured out the solution. The first male student was outside the window of the car as it lay from the accident. He blurted out, "IN YOUR ÞURS (purse)! It's in your Þurs!" In other words, the solution was in my Þurs. I reached over, reaching into my purse, and pulled it (the solution) out. As I did this, these runes and words flew forth, "ᛉᚦ together forever." We had won the solution and outwitted fate. All was well and I woke up safe in my bed. Ideas poured out.

ᛉᚦ together forever (the solution) is a two-edged sword and a Rainbow Bridge.

The two-edged sword Rainbow Bridge is my birth rune Hagall ᚼ.

ᚼ is composed of a bindrune consisting of Elhaz and two runes Þurs, as quantum chaotic Þurs can decohere it's structure into any manifest form to show it's other face as can Hela, such that the point of each Þurs is infacing.

Elhaz in Hagal:

Hela's two infacing runes Þurs are additionally composed of two runes Kenaz and two runes Isa - signifying the Torch-Illumination of the Noble Beast face to face and in communication with the Torch-Illumination of the Highest Wode Self. Consequently, Hagall represents bringing the ultimate light of awareness from darkness, where darkness is the source of light.

 Hail Hela!

Awesome Skull Teapot

I heart this:

The Dragon Slayer

In follow-up to my previous post, I just learned that today is the Day of Remembrance for Sigurd the Dragon Slayer of Northern Tradition. This is an interesting synchronicity with my Naudh dream last night.

Michael Kelly writes in Aegishjalmur, the Book of Dragon Runes that:

the slaying of the Dragon is indicative of the victory of consciousness over non-consciousness in the individual.

He also writes that the act of consuming the Dragon's blood (as I consumed the orange juice in my dragon dream) indicates that this drinking is:

an act of affirmation that the hero and the Dragon are linked by blood: they are kin. In other words, the Initiate takes conscious control of his life and establishes his own Will in the place of sovereignty, but he accepts that the Beast he has conquered as a valid and necessary part of himself.

I was wondering what the heck the drinking of the orange juice had to do with anything in the dream. Now I have an association.

Naudh - Back to the Beginning of Life

My shoppe's Dark Draconian Dragon Eye Aegishjalmur Bindrune Logo.

Yesterday, I created several new offerings for my Etsy shoppe, Witchcrafts Artisan Alchemy. Among them, I created two powerfully potent new dark arts oils, namely Dark Draconian and Black Sabbatica. For these two oils, I developed a necromantic poem spell:

Out of the deepest depths I call you,
From dark dreams, silent wells and black visions,
Rise upon the murmuring mists edging the Night
Through the Dragon's Eye in the Void,
Let dead lips open, and blood runes of awareness fly forth
And let the living listen ... 

Last night's rune drawing was naudh, the rune which drives evolution. Then, I dreamt.

I was driving my car, all at once, near the court house, the hospital and town center shopping plaza. In the passenger seat was my friend who was a boy. I dropped him off at work, at the hospital-court house (these places were distinct in appearance, but I saw them both simultaneously) located in the western part of town. Then I drove east down Main Street, toward Pennsylvania Avenue where I lived (used to live in real life). I was now driving a nice new shiny black and powerfully built pickup truck (reminds me of the Dodge Ram-tough slogan).

I pulled into a restaurant which had curb service. This restaurant does not exist in my town in real life, at least it hasn't existed here in my lifetime. (I had a sense of time past mixed with time present, so perhaps this restaurant existed in the past.) There were also booths and tables inside the restaurant. I went inside and placed my order for takeout. Two men ran the restaurant. They recognized me, people had been there looking for me.

Back out in my power pickup truck again, I placed my food order container on the passenger floorboard while I drove. My container of food was in a Long John Silver's fish dinner box. I continued driving east toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

I went inside my house, but instead of being inside my house, I was in the house of my business nemesis (who was not at home). In a back room, the old grandfather lay on a bed in a coma state. He was trying to communicate with me - telepathically - instinctually, without words or images, I came to know that there was a stack of DVDs in the living room - I was to go download them (watch them). I went into the living room and downloaded the DVD's into my mind. These DVD's contained family memories.

As I was downloading, I saw my nemesis and her boyfriend at some mixed point in time in an apartment. They sat down together on this rounded large chest-like stool-like chair. As they sat down together, the insides of the stool-chair collapsed like a vacuum, sucking them down into the void within it.

Then I had a vision where I saw the North American continent. The northern border (of the USA) shared with Canada and along the western coast were being consumed by the void (like Nidhogg consumes). It reminded me of the Langoliers eating up everything in their path, only instead of leaving a black nothingness, they left a white nothingness - a formless white void. I issued a warning to those living in the path of the expanding whitish void of the danger of being consumed into aconscious nothingness.

Then I was back in the house of my nemesis, and was worried about being caught as an intruder, even though I thought I had entered my own house. Then my nemesis, her boyfriend and her mother came home and found me. My nemesis didn't want me there, but her mother did. At this point, I realized that we were part of the same folk soul. Though I was experiencing this part of the dream action from the perspective of being in the house of my nemesis, I was not an intruder, I was kin. So, I stuck around and my nemesis went off in a huff into another room (the kitchen) with her boyfriend and a few other friends.

The mother of my nemesis and I went into the back (and now basement room) with the grandfather who lay in a coma. The grandfather now had characteristics of being both a grandfather and a grandmother. The mother of my nemesis and I prepared the body as if we were ritually preparing a body for burial, although the body was not dead, but in a death-like still-living state.

The body was wearing a vest. We tied the ties which were part of the structure of the vest. The vest reminded me of the breastplate of judgment (the choshen mishpat of Middle Eastern Levant tradition, and looking it up after waking, of a Northern Tradition indigenous tribal shaman's breastplate - and particularly as it pertains to tribal cultures, to the dress of "light shamans").

Then I saw that a bassinet-shaped collection container near one wall in the room was collecting "smelly yellowish liquid shit" (like the stool of someone with advanced alcoholic cirrhosis) from a stoma from the body (note - I rarely drink alcohol). As I noticed it, the mother said to me, "yes, we (the family of my nemesis) have to deal with this shit."

As we completed tying the ties on the body's vest, a mass of water was welling up around the house and threatening to collapse the walls inward. A hall door to the outside by the body's room bulged inward and collapsed, but it reformed as I looked at it, and no water flooded into the house or collapsed its walls, even though the water still surrounded the house all around. We walked up the stairs toward the main part of the house.

I woke up briefly, recorded my dream, then fell back asleep, and dreamt again.

I was with others at a fancy boarding school. I wasn't sure if I belonged there, so I pretended to be a worker employed by the school. I went to a back room (one of my sons was with me while I was doing this) and took medical notes, acting like I was doing some work in case I was caught being there and I wasn't supposed to be.

But, someone came in (an old female DON I used to work for) and asked me to join everyone else in the banquet room to eat. As I walked through another dining room toward the banquet hall, I picked up a delicate teacup which had been sitting on a lovely wooden antique cupboard with orange juice in it and drank it.

In the banquet hall, I went up to the buffet with others in the line and started fixing my plate of food. I looked for the ice, and the person beside me pointed to the bowl of ice cubes. I picked some out and put them into my glass.

Then suddenly, I had a vision of a single celled organism surrounded by emptiness as I woke up startled by the intensity of the sight of the very first cell from which all life began.

Laying in bed, it also came to me suddenly that the ginnungagap (magically charged void) is consciousness associated with the very first ancestral cell from which all life began (and superposed, to each single cell from which each human being still begins life), and that the division into polarities of fire and ice are related to the very first case of cellular mitosis leading to reproduction. Importantly, the ginnungagap is a magically charged (black) void containing the spark of consciousness, whereas the (white) void associated with Nidhogg is an aconscious void which is not magically charged with consciousness as is the ginnungagap.

Footnote:

My poem is one I developed specifically for my own work - it was fashioned in the manner of two poems - one found in the Havamal in the Poetic Edda and another one in Aegishjalmur, the Book of Dragon Runes by Michael Kelly.

Ek Forn Norn

In my previous post, in my Ansuz dream, I am an ancient witch who determines fates, and to whom are relinquished (and from whom are granted) "secret cards" which function (in the dream) as each person's token of destiny, like a package of DNA determines genotype.

The Icelandic phrase, ek forn norn, means I, ancient witch.

The etymology of the word norn is disputed, but it may come from the Swedish word norna (nyrna), a verb that means to "inform secretly".

Norn, in addition to meaning "witch" and "to inform secretly", may also mean "to twine."

My dream is underscoring to me that my Being finds genesis of consciousness beyond the deepest layers of örlög in the Dark Goddess of Old Fate.

So, I think that while many runers may use the phrase ek erilaz in runeworkings, I will use the phrase ek forn norn.

Ansuz - The Witches

Last night's nightly rune drawing - Ansuz, followed by some of last night's dream.

I was found by a man and a woman traveling together from a dark group of witches. I joined up with them. We started out toward the group's school hall and meeting place.

It was dark outside, night time. We walked down I-74, the interstate which runs near where I live. There were no vehicles on the interstate, in any lane, or from any direction.  I laid down in the road while the man conducted some claiming-marking and initiatory ritual over my body as the woman kept watch.

Then we proceeded to the witches school-meeting hall, where witches from all around gathered. I was put into the care of another woman witch at the place and magically groomed, right where I stood in the hall, for the gathering. As I was being groomed, I began shapeshifting where I stood, transforming and growing into my full awesome witch form. Others, both new witches and seasoned witches, started gathering around me as the grooming witch was magically pouring toward me the spell causing me to "show myself," to unfold as the witch I am. They were awed at my form and power.

I stretched, my form levitated, my feet leaving the ground, and I hovered hanging in the air. I looked toward my feet, which were greenish - I had extended long toes and demon-like feet. I felt my fingers were the same, although I didn't look at them. I felt the power of myself course through my body, unfolding my form, I felt the awesomeness of my electrically charged transformation. So did everyone gathered around. I was a very powerful witch. My body was vibrating-trembling ever so slightly, buzzing with the energy of my transformation. The witches gathered around were ohh-ing and ahh-ing with wonder over my transformation.

After this, I pulled back into my "normal witch" form as we all later made our way into the meeting hall for the witches gathering. There were bleacher seats where most of the witches sat, myself included with my two friends, the two who had brought me into the group. The head witches were down at the front and started the meeting. It was time for us to all transform from our normal witch forms into our witchy witch forms for the meeting.

Everyone began their transformation, as did I. Most witches did not levitate, I'm not sure any others did in fact, but when I transformed, my powerful witch form naturally levitated from the power emanating from me. Again, everyone, even in their witch forms, started looking at me, awestruck by the ancient awesomeness I exuded even as I was still transforming. The head witch, her transformation completed, started talking, sounding afraid.

One of my friends, even as I was floating still in the process of transforming (my transformation took longer as it went farther), challenged the head witch's power, exclaiming, "look! here is our Head Witch who will lead us in the right direction!"

I finished my full transformation - I was an extremely tall, ancient witch, my form breathtakingly powerfully. I flew down to the front of the room and put my hand out in the air over the head witch. She disintegrated, leaving only her clothes in a pile on the floor. She was no more. I picked up her secret card and publicized it to the room, that head witch was no more. I was now the Head Witch.

The other witch who had been at the front of the room by the side of the previous head witch was shaking in her chair, fearful of what I would do to her. I went over to her and demanded her secret card. She gave it to me. I publicized it to the gathering of witches, but I told her she would get a new secret card. I didn't disintegrate her like I had the previous head witch, who had taken a turn to lead the group in the wrong direction.

I flew up over the crowd of witches in the bleacher seats, showering out gold blessings over all of them as I flew.

Business was finished and we all began transforming into our normal witch selves. Again, my return to my normal witch form took longer as I had farther to go. I was back up in the bleachers with my friends by a refreshments punch bowl. I was still transforming back, but I still played some magic with my female friend over the punch bowl, each of us shooting waves of magic into the bowl from our fingers, making a green witches' brew punch for everyone to drink as part of the refreshments being served. We were having fun, laughing and playing, making the witches' brew.

My male friend came over and sat by us as we finished making the witches' brew punch. We were laughing from having a good ole time doing this girlie girl magic. He sat down beside me as I wiped over one of my eyes with my hand, which left it surrounded with black like real witches's eyes have. My male friend wiped over my other eye with his hand, leaving it also black like real witches' eyes are. He kissed my eye as he did it, saying to my girl friend, "I brought her in so I could kiss her."

My transformation back into normal my witch self was complete, I was a normal witch again like everyone else.

I woke up. Now, that's an awesome Ansuz witch dream!