Not these angels (please Gods).  These angels.

Starting with my next session, which will take place on Twelfth Night, December 31st, I am switching my oracular seidhr sessions away from the eight major Anglo-Saxon holy days and back to the full moons.  (Twelfth Night happens to fall on the night of a Blue Moon, the second full moon in the month of December–a very appropriate time, I felt, to make this switch. )  The reasons for this change are many, but the two most important are: 1) the full moon energies enhance the seidhr ritual itself, making it easier for me to bridge the worlds and get answers to your questions, and 2) I need to do this ritual more often, even if there are few or no questions for a given session.  As I’ve noted before, the questions–while important–are not the most important concern in this Work; the linking of this world with Asgard, and drawing those two worlds closer together, is.  Eight times a year is not often enough for that to happen.

At any rate, if you’d like to submit a question for this upcoming session (ask me anything you want–what the new year will bring, whether you will change jobs soon, what you should be focusing on spiritually, etc.), obviously there is still time.  Just email me!

My seidhr services are free and are performed as a devotional act to Odin, Mimir, and the Well-Wight; however, donations to help defray the cost of my ritual supplies (liquor for libations, candles, charcoal and herbs, rent…:)) are always welcome, and can be sent to my Paypal account.

As of today, I will no longer be blogging on WordPress and have moved my blog over to my website, Wanderings on a Wain.  This was a change I contemplated for a few months and Yule winding down seems as good a time as any to make it.  Please update your links and bookmarks accordingly, and I hope to see you there.

A Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it!  For everyone else, a Happy Ongoing Yule!

I didn’t post anything for the Wild Hunt playlist last night because I was out mumming with my friends Dver and Sannion.  It was an absolutely amazing night which I hope will become a new Yule tradition for us, and I may post more about it, but right now I’m still recovering.  So in the meantime, here are the songs for yesterday and today.  First, the classic, which really needs no introduction:

And now a new favorite, which Dver introduced to me:

Finally, a poem for Yule:  “Huntsman,” from my 2007 book Water from the Well:

Wind stirs the surface of my thoughts, sending ripples outward,
and suddenly there’s a darker quality to the air, a bite of blood,
Crisp and sweet as autumn’s apples, brittle as dried leaves—
the moist earthiness of the fresh-dug grave, yet edged with ice,
Tasting of decay and smokiness—bonfires, and rotted flowers, and booze.
Fire crackles and green wood pops, sending up random sparks;
I catch my breath as someone throws another fistful of herbs into the flame—
Bitter mugwort, chamomile petals, dried berries soaked in honey, and the choking poison of yew needles.
Behind the veil of smoke, firelight gleams on hundreds of eyes too bright to be human,
Shadowy forms ranged in a vast circle around the bonfire, like actors before a play—
“It’s going to be a great night, everyone, I can feel it; break a leg out there!”
But in this circle horses chuff, anxious to depart, their breath sending little puffs of flame into the air,
Black hounds whine, red eyes shining like warning lights in the dark—danger, keep away—
And in the center by the fire, two wolves pace restlessly, stealing backward glances at their master.
Towering over the gathering as his horse towers above him, He stands,
His cloak a flow of darkness about his shoulders, gold glimmering at his chest and brow,
And from the shadows of his helm, a single blue eye burning like a portal to day.
He laughs—the deep, rolling peal of troll bells echoing through hollow hills,
Takes one more long draught from the horn in his hand, emptying it
before pulling me to him, filling my mouth with the dizzying taste of impossibly strong mead,
Sharp against his tongue, dark, rich honey with a coppery hint of blood.
My senses are still swimming, my lips tingling pleasantly from the scratch of his whiskers
as strong hands seize me and swing me upward, into a saddle so high it feels like the top of a skyscraper.
A moment later, and he is there beside me, his body a comforting warmth between my thighs.
He takes the reins as I clasp his waist and risk a glance downward; the ground is so very far away,
then further still, as eight hooves pound the earth and the bonfire goes whirling down
into darkness, the courtyard and the roof of shields receding beneath our feet.
The night sky rises to meet us, stars shining coldly silver in the meager spaces between clouds—
Then those spaces close, and the wind comes, ravaging my hair with a million fingers,
Raking my skin so that I clutch him more tightly, hiding my face against his cloak.
The tight-woven wool is warm but also wet, grains of ice melting beneath my cheek,
and there is snow in my hair and eyelashes; peeking out, I see great swirls of white
Swathing the sky, blowing like swarms of phantoms in the driving winds.
I hear someone laughing—high and giddy, wild and unchecked, verging on hysteria,
And realize it’s me, my head flung back, my mouth open to catch the shards of white
that pelt my face like needles, stinging and then numbing my flesh.
Ecstasy swells and spirals within me—like the climbing tendrils of bonfire smoke, like the whirling white of the storm—
and can only escape through my throat as my thighs and hands pull him closer, craving his heat.
Then the winds shift, and we are heading downward, towards the earth; the hounds have caught the scent of prey
and the chase is on, as we fly low over slumbering fields and mist-wrapped woods
Like a fiery arrow born by the winds, scorching the landscape beneath us,
Following a spear’s reach behind a frenzied fleeing through the underbrush,
Our shrieks of joy mingling with the howling of wolves and the yelping of dogs as we chase,
Drunk on the scent of fear, the promise of blood and the biting winds that urge us onward, onward—
Until at last a spear is thrown, the kill is claimed, and the hooves beneath us touch down on solid earth.
Dizziness rises in me as he helps me to my feet, as if I have been spinning wildly
and then suddenly stopped, the ground tilting crazily beneath me.
Hounds bay, red eyes charting a path through the woods unerringly until they reach their quarry,
and then pace, whimpering, sniffing at the fallen prey—neither human nor any kind of familiar beast—and waiting for their reward.
Close behind them follows the Hunt, to divide up the kill in a fury of slashing knives, ripping teeth, and tearing claws.
The wolves whine, and are thrown a haunch of something bloody, leaving the dogs to beg for scraps.
And in the midst of all this mayhem, his hand closes around mine, drawing me away,
Back into the shelter of the woods, away from the clamor and frenzied feeding.
We find a clearing, quiet beneath the stars, the snow an untouched bed of white;
He lowers me down to lie on it, his cloak my only blanket against the cold
that I hardly even feel as he strips my riding gear away.
Ice kisses my flesh, followed by the fire of his mouth, in a downward-spiralling dance.
Hunger burns through me, searing my nerve endings, and I ache to feel him
Swelling to fill my empty places; I crave his heat, to banish my chill from within;
I long to ride—not the winds this time, but his flesh,
Devouring the scent of musk and honey, leather and smoke that clings to his skin,
Watching his blue eye glow like a supernova as ecstasy transforms him.
But for now I am his prey, and I lie spread beneath my huntsman, helpless, laid bare.
He feeds on me as the dogs and wolves feed on the fallen beast,
Until tremors spread outward from my center
Like ripples stirred by the wind.

- Valgrind