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kinfriday · 1 year

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Savagery

It’s hard to know how to feel as I’ve been going through the history of the Viking age peoples.

On one hand they were profoundly inclusive, traveling the world, inviting other cultures to trade, and even including some of them. People with Persian DNA have been found in graves, along with rings with Allah inscribed upon them.

What’s more we have written firsthand accounts, some of the only surviving, of Viking funerary rites from traders, and many historians now believe that the ancient Silk Road had its western terminus in Scandanavia.

While gender roles seemed to have been strictly enforced, women still had the ability to own property, or serve as warriors. There even seems to be evidence, though it would be easy to read too much into it, that the Vikings were comfortable with a type of non-human identity in some.

In a vacuum all of this sounds amazing. Here we have a warrior culture, that also traded and welcomed others and had at least some degree of respect for women as they ventured across the world.

Truly, they must be a model of 9th century progressive values and ideals.

Not so fast...

While, to a degree welcoming, worldly, and inclusive, our spiritual ancestors were also, at the very same time, terrible people. A bulk of the slave trading in Europe came from the Viking World. Rape, and the murder of children was an acceptable war tactic, and virtually anything could be done to a person one owned, even up to murder, with little to no consequence.

Human sacrifice to the Gods was common and means of justice were shockingly brutal.

None of this existed in a vacuum. The Christian kingdoms of this era were at least as bad, and in some ways worse, as were the Romans. You aren’t going to find a human society that is without its horrors, and if you read the legends, even the Gods do reprehensible things.

As I’ve grown in my knowledge of the legends, I find it interesting that, from my perspective, Ragnarök was a preventable tragedy. Loki’s three monstrous children are bound, but the why is at best hazy, and with Fenrir it’s an outrage.

The Gods feared the great wolf, but nothing that survives ever indicates he was a threat. Perhaps we should trust the wisdom of Woden here, perhaps he had some foresight, but all we have from the legends is fear, and it is his binding that sets up the great cascade of events that culminate in the death of the Gods themselves.

I wonder if one of the reasons Loki went after Baldr, was a result of Woden binding Loki’s son unjustly.

One might be surprised to see such sentiment from me, but the Gods call me to be honest, and the one thing they never claim to be in all the legends is perfect, nor do they claim to be unchangeable.

As said, they even face death, which is an ultimate form of change, perhaps the most necessary kind.

I say this because I realize I am not so different from the ancestors. While many might see my actions as progressive, or even virtuous as a vegan, as someone that strives to go fair trade with her clothing, chocolate and bananas etc. Striving isn’t good enough, is it?

I’m writing this on a computer that was built with conflict minerals, it’s unavoidable. Most likely some ten year old child working his fingers to the bone mined the cobalt for my fancy electronics.

Migrants denied any pathway to legal or easy immigration into this country are exploited to grow my food. Some of my clothing was most likely made in sweatshops.

We like to think that we’ve come far as a society, and we have. We now keep our slave labor, our exploitation of others firmly out of sight while we pat ourselves on the back for wearing hemp and shopping at Whole Foods, judging those that came before us with a type of virtuous horror.

And it’s not fair to them, and it won’t be fair to us when, five or ten generations down, they look at us as brutal savages either.

I don’t think anything can make many of the actions of our ancestors right, or understandable, but I think to honor them properly we must look at them with honesty and as lessons of what not to do, how not to be, as much as how to be.

I see this with the Gods too, and the chronicling of their savagery and past mistakes recorded in the mythology. Woden is not the same God that he was a thousand years ago, he has grown and changed. I am deeply convinced of this. What’s more, the culture that interpreted, or misinterpreted his actions is now gone, and we’re left with our, in some ways, more progressive time where we can forge new relationships with these High Ones.

Nothing is static, nothing will ever be perfect, but in every era, every time, there were at least a handful, some known, some unknown, that bucked the trend, that sought to be better than the world they were raised in and went beyond what they were given.

There were people who freed their slaves, fought for justice, or never kept another human being because it just felt wrong. There were noble warriors who never harmed a child or violated a woman in a village.

They may have been few, they may have done their good deeds under a cloak of eternal anonymity, but we have the same choice.

I can’t stop it all, but I can stop some. I can’t keep myself from benefiting 100% in the privileged position I exist in, but I can use that privilege to shout from the rooftops and intervene for those that have none.

We are our deeds, in totality. Much is made of being a warrior in many modern heathen paths. Well, I feel my war is within, and against every systemic cruelty that exists in the world.

It may be my Jörmungandr, it may be the end of me, but as long as I’m working to do better, and be better, than I feel I am honoring the Ancestors and the Gods.

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fornagudar · 1 year

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Sæl and well met!

For the longest time, I was struggling with my Wicca. So, more inspired by Raymond Buckland, I came to the Norse/Anglo-Saxon/Germanic deities by way of Saxon Witchcraft.

I respect and work with the Gods of the North, mixing the streams. I'm sure to the dismay of more purist heathens or some more "hard core" reconstructionists. But I dive in and swim as well as I can.

Currently, the main deities I'm exploring are Frey and Frejya.

If my journey takes me deeper into heathenry we shall see!

#heathenry #asatru #anglo saxon heathenery #anglo saxon pagan #norse deities #norse pagan witch #norse paganism #norse pantheon #norse witch #norse

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eugeniusthepagan · 5 years

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A Birthday Offering to my Mother

My mother passed away 21 years ago last January. Today would have been her 55th birthday. In Saxon Heathenery, ancestor offerings are common so I decided that my daily offering today would be to my mother. It was a lot more informal than my offerings usually are.

I did it outside instead of at my altar, and I didn't use any special tools. Just popped open a can of beer, spoke to my mother, took a sip of the beer and poured the rest out on the ground. Then I spoke to her some more.

I don't know if it was an actual offering, or just a session of self therapy. Maybe both?

Happy birthday Mom. You are loved, and you are missed. And you are never, ever forgotten.

#paganblr #paganism #pagan #fyrnsidu #anglo saxon heathenry #Anglo-Saxon paganism #offerings #pagan offerings #heathen offerings #heathen #Heathenery

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kinfriday · 2 years

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All Hallows

The scents of autumn drift upon the air. The wind has changed, and with it a chill, as if in herald to the coming season.

The rains have blessedly returned, and for the first time since last spring I can hear the creek bubbling down the way, racing towards the river.

Trees, bedecked in their fiery splendor, beckon in fond farewell, for they shall soon sleep through the winter, as the evergreen, ever stalwart, keep sentry.

It is a time of reflections, and transitions. In many traditions this is the moment where old business should be concluded. The very definition of harvest being to reap the work done in the previous year, all the while we prepare for the cold months ahead. Memento Mori... Remember death, reflected in coming winter, in every meal, at every moment of our life, death walks beside us. It is an ever present and often ignored companion, but not in this season. This is the season of reaping, and in many western cultures, death is imagined as a reaper, with robe and scythe, harvesting souls like we mortal harvest wheat and corn. It is the cycle, life and death must both exist. The fear of death comes in the perception that death is an ending, but I have found that death is a threshold, which inspires a love in me of this current holiday, and sparks reflection on my own path, this way I'm trying to build. Memento Mori... Remember you will die. That makes it quite personal. One day this body of mine will end, but it's not the end of my journey. That death is the threshold for the next journey. Remembering that I will come to an autumn in this life, and then the winter, reminds me that I will one day cross that far horizon, then, my spirit will come to a new spring. Death is a transition, not a stopping. The trees shed their leaves in fall, and seem to lose all life, but a spark of it persists within, ready to explode out in all the grandeur and hope of life in spring. For every night there is a dawn, and in that, I see reason for discipline, reason for moments of quiet reflection. Today, two days before the 31st, I've taken up the task of fasting. Today I will eat nothing, I will feel hunger, endure the winter. In truth, my stomach is already rumbling five hours into my day. At multiple times I have found myself standing in front of the snack cabinet, eager for a pretzel or some peanut. But not today... Memento Mori... It's time to do the hard thing.. It reminds me, this discipline, that I am more than just a body, that I am not enslaved to its wants, that I am in control, but there's something more. Through denial I am learning of the boundaries between my spirit and the mortal coil that it drives. I feel the edges of my own being, contained within this life that is mine for but a season. By facing my small winter, my chosen winter now for a day... maybe two, I prepare myself for the times when I may have less. I show myself that I can survive with less, that it's ok to do without for a time. It reminds me also that so many in our world do not have this choice. They experience hunger without choice, that I am incredibly privileged for everything I have and with those privileges come responsibilities, not the least of which is to honor all the good I've been given. But on Monday, I will feast, and celebrate. I will enjoy every good thing, spend time with family, and offer mead to the Gods... These two aspects exist in balance, one to the other, life and death, winter and spring, and in honoring both sides, I feel I honor the spirit of the autumn. It is both a time to look forward, and back. It is liminal, and we, each are liminal beings. A blessed All Hallows to all. May the Gods grant you a good harvest and an easy winter. -Rebecca Snow Hare

#Heathenasceticism #Anglo saxon heathenery #germanic paganism #asatru #troth #halloween #all hallows eve #memento mori #fall 2022 #autumn #The Way of the Hare #neopaganism #samhain #otherkin #therian #heathen #heathenry

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kinfriday · 1 year

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127

I’ve been sick all week.

It’s not Covid, thank the Gods, but when one of my partners returned from a trip he brought back a nasty little hitchhiker that has sidelined me from every one of my routines and rhythms.

Hardly able to sleep, not having much energy to move, of course I could find the strength to eat.

All I’ve wanted was cereal and peanuts and have largely fulfilled this ambition with wanton abandon. I’ve been afraid to even look at a scale.

I swear, “Snowy, Devourer of Pretzels” will be inscribed upon my tombstone, below my chosen epitaph... We apologize for the inconvenience.

With everything thrown off, and my discipline a smoldering ruin, it’s not been a very ascetic week for me, unless you count not sleeping.

Four months ago, I began this blog series talking about this path I’m trying to forge, leaving my entries here both as a kind of help, and as an accountability tool for myself. After all, one of the reasons monastic communities form is that it’s easier to make progress and find encouragement when you’re surrounded by a group of like-minded individuals.

And it’s been a mighty struggle, I’ve dealt with injury that’s kept me from the physical part of my discipline, which has led to me struggling with the spiritual side, wondering why I can’t measure up, why I can’t make progress, often chronicling my attempts to try only to fail, over and over again.

And now I’m sick, and for the first day since Monday, I feel a bit better. There was no sensation of having swallowed razor blades when I woke up this morning, but I’ve lost another week.

It’s been incredibly hard, a challenge I don’t fully understand. I have this calling, I have this drive to seek this life, and these ways, but my body won’t cooperate, and moments of weakness find me, diverting me from my path.

I’ve been fighting my own personal Jotuns, and often losing badly.

I wonder if Thunor has seasons like this.

Meanwhile, I’ve been growing very concerned over storm clouds gathering on the horizon. I spent much of the day yesterday angry and bewildered over developments coming out of Texas and North Dakota. They are the latest states to fire salvos against the rights of transgender people living there.

We live in dark times, and they are growing darker for many. The political and legislative bodies are turning against the rights and freedom of their constituents, instead moving towards systems of control, and exclusion.

We all know what happens next. We’ve been to the museums and wept at the horrors perpetuated by our ancestors, proclaiming with earnest voices, “Never Again.”

Well, it’s happening again, right before our very eyes. People are being “othered”, marginalized, and excluded. It always starts with legislation. It ends with death camps.

I can’t get this out of my mind. I’m a native Texan and have nothing to do but sit here and be sick, watching with growing horror as these things happen.

One of the worst things one can feel is helplessness. I see these things happening, and I wonder what the hell I can do about it. Then I start thinking of my failures, my inability to gain traction these last few months with the more disciplined path I’ve been seeking, and then, looking broader, the overall pattern of my life of trying and failing.

All the while the calling has existed life long, no matter how well I’ve done with it. It is there every day, the impetus to serve, to help, to seek the Gods, which has led me to this very moment.

The storm clouds rumble ominously while I’m struggling to get my shit together, but I’m starting to understand, I think, what all this is for. What all the challenge has been for.

“And when you see evil, be not silent and grant the enemy no peace.” Havamal Stanza 127. An unambiguous command from the All Father himself.

If you see something wrong, be ready to do something about it, and don’t be quiet about it.

This command has been taken up by inclusivist heathens all over the world to challenge that dishonorable actions of the folkish white supremacists that denigrate our Gods and our traditions with their filth.

Well, another Jotun has arisen, dark and terrible upon our lands, spreading its evil and filth right alongside these racist pretenders. There is congruence in the two camps, their evils are complimentary.

It’s going to be a struggle, and it’s going to take all of us. Amidst it all, amidst this rising tide of evil, I’m beginning to understand my own challenges better as a result.

I haven’t been able to make much progress these last four months for all my efforts. I haven’t always been able to keep to my patterns and my ways, but I have not given up, and I will not give up.

And that is training. There is no shape yet to the struggle to come. The storm has not yet arrived, but it will be full of challenges, setbacks, and loss. There will be times where, like now, we will feel bewildered and on the edge of hopelessness, but that does not mean we can quit.

We all need to come together, form networks, form communities, be ready to help each other and prop us up, LGBTQ and allies alike. This is no time for any of us to be on the sidelines.

No, the storm is coming, the forest is burning, and we can either work together to push back hard against what is coming, or we can become complicit through our inaction.

The past is past, and every struggle, every setback, every moment I’ve disappointed myself it’s been a gift to get me ready for this next phase of my life. There is no doubt within me that we are facing some hard times, and people will need help.

There is also no doubt that I’m going to fail a lot. There’s going to be things I just won't be able to do, and that’s going to hurt. It’s going to be disappointing and infuriating, much like these last four months have been.

There’s who I want to be, and who I’ve become for a moment, but when things go wrong, or I fall on my path, all that is left is to get back up, clean myself off and get back to doing the right thing, heading in the proper direction.

It’s all coming down to this, and it’s all becoming clear what the Gods have been preparing me for.

So now the question remains... What will you do? Where will you stand? The lines are being drawn, which side will you stand on?

-Sister Snow Hare

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kinfriday · 1 year

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Winter Solstice

The winter has grown bitter, the feasting of spring and summer a distant memory.

Memories are akin to dreams. There is no system of time beyond the rising and setting of a sun, no concept of days, or years beyond cycles that have happened often enough to be familiar.

There are cold times, and there are warm times. Times of enough, and not enough. Times of greater rest, and greater activity spurred on by the bounty of the clearing and forest around me.

This cold time, the world seems particularly crystalized. The ground has become hard, the wind blows over snow that sparkles like crystal in the moonlight. Silence drapes over the world like a shroud.

The water at the creek is now too hard to break through, and I am limited to lapping at the ice or nibbling snow. Sticks are a regular feature of my meals, or what grass remnants I find, digging through the snow.

All of this leaves my paws icy cold and wet, and no matter how thick my fur, it’s the wet and the wind that drives me back into my hollow, where I find sleep, warmth and comfort.

Yet there are also times of great waiting, just at the edge of the skeletal branches of my oak tree. My fur thick enough that the wind buffets around me as I endure the long winter, staring out over the meadow as silent sentry in the moonlight, while the crystals of ice twinkle as if in competition with the stars.

There is no anticipation of spring, no longing for the bounty to come. There is instead a lack of forward imagination, this is now, it is as simple as that. What would be tomorrow? I don’t know of tomorrow, or yesterday. One time there was plenty, now there was cold. This happened before, but there is a truth that stands proudly, almost independent of myself.

She shall always return.

___ The Winter Solstice is often referred to as a celebration of life, the victory of light over dark, and the promise of spring on the horizon, but it is also the longest, coldest night of the year.

It is that darkness that gives it its gravitas. It is the zenith of the dark when it reigns most triumphant over the world. It is the time when the physical death in nature is most present.

Yet this must be for the sun to rise higher the next morning, beginning its long journey towards the summertime and its bounty.

The night is necessary. The cold, the pain, its just as much a part of that day as the earlier dawn that follows it and that’s the part that’s the hardest for me to acknowledge.

It’s a challenge to be in metaphorical winter, to struggle, to suffer, to be unable to find the traction you so desperately need to make the progress that you seek.

Yet in the winter solstice there is, if not an answer, at least a promise that the next day will at least be a little better. That there is an ending to every long dark night, every moment of painful winter that exists in our lives.

Light and Dark must both exist. It is that balance of cruel winter and vibrant spring that holds all life. Just as the world goes through the cycles each year, so too will we go through these cycles in our lives, until we encounter our own winter solstice.

When our bodies can give no more, at the zenith of our breakdown and decay, the physical form will die, and the spirit moves on to its next journey, and its next destination.

So, as we celebrate this season of lights, let us also celebrate not the night, not the bitter, painful cold of death in all its forms, but the idea that death is not a monolith but a fulcrum, a point of change.

Without the night, there would be no understanding of the light.

-Sister Snow Hare

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kinfriday · 1 year

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Sacred Days

My eyes slowly open and I know she is waiting within the deep clearing in the wood.

Emerging from the hollow of my oak, my focus is only forward, as I make way deeper into the forest.

The path has been burned into my memory by uncounted repetition, over and over again as sure as the sun rises to trace its path through the daytime sky, I know the way.

And soon enough, the wood thins to give way to a grass filled clearing, and there is my Lady Eostre, waiting for me. This time there is no harness; no rolled up paper waiting for me to carry it. No, this time she calls me to her side, and I know I am to accompany her.

The where is not important. Sometimes we ascend the ridge, and watch the dawn break over the horizon, other times we travel through the mists to other lands, distant places filled with new scents and human structures.

It is all the same to me.

Places are places, days are days. There has never been a questioning of a moment, or the reason for its happening. In all of my memories from that life, there is only one time I wonder why something is occurring and that is the moment just before my death.

But we are not there yet. How far is it? Who is to say? There is no conception of days having a number, or a purpose beyond being what they are. I only know that I am what I am.

Words have never defined that life, only experiences, moments that shine like stars against the back drop of a night sky of being, interconnected like constellations, shining in relation to each other, but when viewed as a whole, a chaotic wonder of place and time.

And so devoid, of labels like December, Tuesday, or even Yule, I am only left with those moments, stripped of everything but their contents, and in this moment, she is with me, and she is my purpose. As certainly as I know myself, I know she is the focus of my being, as sure as any instinct, or anything that I do know in that life, I know I am hers.

___

It’s been on my mind this last week, as we’ve neared Solstice and all the winter time celebrations that come along with it. I’ve gone through my traditions, performed my small quiet rituals before the Altar, lit the Yuletide candle, listened to Tim Curry read Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

It’s astoundingly good, and I highly recommend it.

Gradually, in a way, relentlessly the time has moved towards peak holiday season, these last days of the year having a peculiar gravity to them, as the entire world of western culture seems to come into celestial alignment with these days. Ugly sweaters abound, diets explode before temptations of bounty, as we celebrate every good thing in our lives.

But the Yuletide is just a series of days, a season in our lives. With our calendars and our complexities, it comes predictably once a year where we unpack its sentiments, dutifully recite its lessons, then pack them away with the tree, the decorations and, with rituals completed, seal away the eldritch abomination of Christmas music for at least one more year.

Mariah Carrie sleeps fitfully, encased in a prison of holly, awaiting the moment just after All Hallows before she will rise once again to torment us all.

And thus, until Ragnarök...

“I will keep Christmas in my heart and observe it all the year.” Says Scrooge upon his reform, and this season, that phrase has stuck with me, along with Marley’s lament...

“Mankind should have been my business!”

Those words ring with conviction as I reflect on the fact that for all my memories of my true life, none include a Holiday, or knowledge that one day was any more important than another.

It was the moments that mattered, and who was a part of them. The presence of my Lady was total, the whole of my world and focus. When she was not there, I was waiting for there, when she was there, all I wanted was to be near or please her.

We’d travel, I’d occasionally run messages, and often receive treats of apple for my efforts.

In the springtime she would sit and sing with me sprawled across her lap, blissfully half conscious, while she stroked back my ears.

The days themselves were not sacred to me, they were what they were, but she was sacred to me. Those moments of togetherness and the love I had were and are sacred to me though I did not have the words to define them so then.

And while I do not have any memory of holiday, I think I had it right. The holidays are moments not made sacred by their moment, but by their content, what they remind us of. That family, that having enough, that love, and hope are all blessings to be cherished. That life is precious and fleeting. We only have this moment for sure so let us make the most of it. Let us love with our whole heart and strive to live in fullness of the now.

A blessed and happy holiday to all. May the blessings of the Gods find you throughout the year!

-Sister Snow Hare

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kinfriday · 1 year

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The Long Winter

The first light breaks on a strangely quiet dawn, frozen and cold. Warm for the moment, my consciousness stirs.

My first sensation is that of being comfortable, save for one distant cold spot in my fur, present but not unpleasant. I’m built for the extremes after all, ensconced within the small hollow of this oak tree, my body heat and fur alone keeps me perfectly warm.

Still there is a sense, somehow, that it has continued to snow. Maybe it’s the smell, or the sensation of the air. The world ever changes, and I’ve lived long enough to understand its language and its song.

It would be good to remain. I am comfortable here in the dark, hiding away from whatever is waiting outside, warm and content, but other needs drive me forward. Food and water, that which I can find, are needed, and so with reluctant effort, I begin to push and pull, sliding along the walls that barely contain me. Sliding along the smooth walls, no doubt worn down by the countless time I've done this before, passing season after season safely with, I make my way towards the entrance.

The cold spot in my fur becomes more pronounced, if only slightly as it comes into contact with the wood, and soon I catch hint of the light. In moments I am there, my head pops out of the small entrance, and I raise my ears, as my eyes take in a vast snowy expanse.

A blanket of snow has covered the meadow, and the forest all around. A dense, and frosty fog clings to the peaks and seems to hover in the air like the very specter of winter.

There are no sounds. No birds sing, it is a preternaturally quiet world, as devoid of song as it is of feature.

The trees standing at the edge of the meadow are devoid of leaves, as they jut up into the sky like tombstones mourning the spring and summer that was with its seeming eternal abundance.

But this happens, I know, though I have no words for “calendar” or “day” or “weather.” As long as I can remember, there has been this cycle. Food for a while, warmth for a while, life for a while, mornings punctuated by birdsong, followed by silence, scarcity, and cold.

To be certain I miss the noises the birds make, as if singing me to sleep. My cycle is not like theirs. It has always been given to me to endure the long nights. While the rest of the world seeks its rest, that is when I have been. Ever the quiet watcher, waiting for the dawn.

For now though, water. Nibbling at cold snow never seem to satisfy me, but I can scent the creek on the air just up from my oak tree.

Moving in that direction, the water has grown hard and slick again, but I can hear some rushing underneath.

Investigating with my nose, setting one paw down, tentatively, as I put weight to hop closer to some rocks, it goes through.

Icy cold, a brief sensation of pain, forces me to flatten my ears and shake the water off paw as if in offense, but now... there is a small pool.

It is cold as I drink, deeply cold, which spreads through my muzzle and down my throat, but I am less thirsty now, though one paw is especially cold and wet.

This wet, I know, can bring me some pain in time. It is the season for wet and pain, eventually it will drive me back, inside the hollow of my tree, where I will find my warmth again, and hours of blackness.

This is also the time for longer sleeps. I never go away, like other creatures, who seem to vanish, existing only in the good times, like the birds, but the nights feel longer, and with the cold, comes a greater tiredness.

All of these things have a solution, longer sleeps, lapping at the hard cold water with its hint of salt if I’m near to the rocks, or digging down through the white expanse to find the remnants of grass, and roots.

I can even find sticks to nibble, though I am rarely satiated like I am in spring.

Still this time will pass, and it is not without its peace, or its joys.

Through the long night hours, when the moon is high, the world glows in preternatural light, as I remain ever at the edge of my tree, the quiet sentinel, waiting for the dawn.

---

Memories of winter, from my true life, have been at the forefront this last week.

Looking back through my last few entries, it’s all shadow work. Time and time again, I’ve come here, intending to write about my ascetic path, only to deliver a triage report of challenge and failure.

I suppose it wouldn't be a path without it's challenges. A long flat road might be comfortable to walk on, but without struggle, there is no growth.

Reflecting backing, in 2020, which was a terrible year, I was, ironically, near the peak for many of my disciplines. While the world persisted in a pandemic winter, I was finding my spring.

My weight was lower, my fitness was high, patterns and routines defined my days. There was a near perfect rhythm to my life that helped me pass through the disappointments of that year.

And then came September. Burn out was cresting on the horizon, blowing on the wind like the harbinger of autumn. Some of my disciplines began to crack. It got harder to get out there and do the work, until things, inevitably, fell apart.

All of this has been heavy on my mind, as I reflect on the challenges of the last few months.

You’ll often hear, to the point of cliché, that life is a journey, or a cycle, yet I have not been able to get it out of my mind that these long cycles of success and struggles are seasonal. Not just in their timing or, how one follows another, but how they are variable.

Some springs are brighter, and more vibrant than others, some winters are deeper and colder than others but none of them are eternal. The only constant is change.

And so, as I’ve come to reflect on the struggles of this autumn, I remember fondly the long winters of my past, for I survived all of them, grew from all of them. As miserable and challenging as they were, I grew, almost in a defiance of the cold and death they brought to my life and rhythms.

So now, as we head towards winter solstice here, perhaps that reflection is especially appropriate.

After the darkest of nights, the sun rises a little higher in the sky. It is the first herald of the bounty of the coming year, and while I do not know if I have reached my solstice morning yet in my spiritual life, I at least know that day is coming.

In the meantime, I hold onto those memories, I keep giving my heart to the work as much as I can. I remember my principles and remember that I only have so long here to live them, and to embody them, so I best make the most of it.

After all, it has always been given to stand in witness to the night.

The dawn always comes!

-Sister Snow Hare

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kinfriday · 1 year

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Lighthouses

2022 began with me emerging from a period of injury that made it very difficult to move.

Four months prior to the new year, what appears to have been a vaccine reaction triggered a severe case of rhabdomyolysis and inflammation which was exacerbated by an extreme cramping in my lower legs that saw many muscles torn or damaged.

This ended my year on the Pacific Crest trail 400 miles from the terminus.

It was soul crushing on multiple levels. My recovery led me to a period of being sedentary that I hadn’t encountered in years, resetting my fitness progress to essentially zero.

Still, I resolved to set ambitious goals, hoped to lose about thirty pounds and return to the level of fitness I had achieved at the peak of 2020 before another bout of injury sidelined me.

There has been an evolving trend these last few years that I hope I am on the verge of breaking of going hard only to wind up injured, with long spans of recovery.

I like to push, but so many of my endeavors seem to end inconclusively, if not as outright failures. Ambition and effort do not always lead to success, and I am living proof of that, but I’ve come to understand that it is that lack of success that has pushed me to find greater meaning in my work.

It seems a contradiction but having tried and failed as much as I have has pushed me towards a type of success. Elements that have remained glow as beacons, calling me to try again and push forward.

The fact that they still persist, attempt after attempt, only causes them to shine brighter on my horizons. My writing, my fitness, my path... No matter how much I sometimes feel a failure, they always remain. Somehow the road seems to curve, and I seem to find myself back again, chasing those pursuits.

Purpose outshines achievement, persistence outshines motivation. One of the greatest lessons of 2022 for me is, I feel, that after a lifetime of knowing my calling on some level, I’m beginning to understand it more and more as a deep and inseparable part of myself.

My purpose is found in my doing, in what I cannot help but be, and this truth, from my perspective is fundamental to all.

It’s what you can’t escape no matter how far you run, it’s what remains monolithic within yourself when the forest of your life has burned down around that is the core of who you are.

And throughout this year, I have strived to live that, with limited amounts of success, but here I am, still moving down the path.

It has been a year of goodbyes too. My Aunt Karen lost her battle with cancer in the first part of the year. She always believed in me, was one of my earliest champions and helped my family accept me when I transitioned. Then in August, my cat Charlie crossed that far horizon.

In loss I have learned why love is precious, and just how fleeting time is. In my last email to her I wrote on the great conceit that there always seems to be more time until there isn’t.

I was in the midst of writing another email to her when the notice of her death arrived.

Persistence, change, new beginnings and endings, 2022 has had all of these. It has taught me profound lessons in moments of soaring victories, crushing defeats, and near unfathomable losses.

It has, in short, been one hell of a year, and through its struggles I’ve gained a greater clarity as I look towards 2023.

Goals have been set, strategies have been devised, and who knows how far I’ll go?

In the fall, my Dragon Edit Team began work on Farthest Star. After three years, and a worldwide pandemic, we are finally returning to the business of publishing with the goal of releasing my next novel this coming June.

Meanwhile, I’m still working towards my first marathon, and dreaming of attempting the continental divide trail.

Some people have called me ambitious or driven, but these goals are reflections of those monoliths. The lighthouses on my horizon. As hard as it gets sometimes, as miserable as I can feel sometimes, or frustrated in those pursuits there is something natural about running each day, writing each day, and pursuing the ascetic path that I’ve been blogging about here.

My nature lends myself towards these things, no matter how imperfectly I may achieve them in a given moment.

They are what is left when all else has failed, the annunciation of my deepest inner truths, which is where I find the strength to haul myself up, time and time again, no matter how much I falter or fail.

Not without despair, not without moments of kicking and screaming, never without doubts, but even my Lady Eostre, in the fragments of legend that have survived has struggled.

She, the embodiment of hope, wrestled with despair, and only found her way through connection and resolve. Though she could not find the strength to bring the Spring she still tried, she still hoped, she still strove, until finally the moment came when hope triumphed over the night.

And there it is, another beacon calling me towards persistence, a week after our celebration of the triumph of the light.

May your 2023 be full of bright blessings and every good thing!

Onward, towards the dawn!

-Sister Snow Hare

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