As The Tide of the Year Turns….
The year is passing;
Alfablot Rite 2019, Connla Freyjason
(The year has passed.)
The king is dying;
(Long live the king!)
Hail Freyr!
(Hail Freyr!)
Lord of Light and Shadow;
(Lord of Height and Harrow!)
The Hunt now rides;
(Long live the king!)
Hail Ullr!
(Hail Ullr!)
Lord of Mound and Harrow;
(Lord of Oath and Shadow!)
Long live the king!
(Long live the king!)
Beside Him, Hela rides!
(Long live the queen!)
Hail Hela!
(Hail Hela!)
The year is dawning;
(The year has dawned.)
In it, may we find new peace;
Peace and good seasons to us,
And to You, and to all that have come before,
And to all that will come after!
Enda er, ok enda skal vera!
Peace. Most of us crave it, or at least pay lip service to doing so. Some of us, in fact, ache for it. We seek it out in the shadowed corridors and corners of our lives, and some of us find it, while many others don’t. Often it’s shattered by the simplest of things–internet firestorms or a soundbyte on TV–making it all too apparent that there are many, many others out there who, rather than craving peace, enjoy the lack of it; enjoy the drama and the shattered lives they leave in their wake. Yet peace may likewise be found in the simplest of things, and perhaps that is the real reason it seems so ephemeral to many of us, for how can something so grand as peace be found in things seemingly so small?
I ache for peace. Inner peace. Personal peace. Community peace. World peace. You name it. It’s a tangible pang, most days. I can literally feel it like a hunger in my heart and, worse still, in my very bones. Yes, sometimes I find it: curled up in my office chair, typing madly, a cat purring in my lap; on the couch, with a bowl full of something delicious, watching TV with my wife; giving foot rubs and knowing soon I’ll be in bed beside someone that I truly love. Yet too often it feels so far out of reach, as I try to fight the good fight for Gods and faith. At those times, it feels like a neverending and unwinnable battle; like I’m stuck in a modern retelling of Hjadhningavig, and nobody chose to send me a memo. And at those times, it is hard to focus on the peace-within-the-small, because the war cries of myself and others are simply too loud, eclipsing the cat’s purr, and the TV, and even the promise of bedtimes-to-come.
Once upon a time, I found my peace in making art. I believed that making beautiful things made the world a slightly more beautiful place, and that was good. I hoped the things that I made would help others to also tap into their artist within, for the more the merrier, you know? If I made things that could enable others to make things, then that just multiplied the beauty. But that wasn’t big enough, in the end. In the end, there wasn’t enough peace to be found in doing only that.
So then I found my peace in my faith practice, and I began to share that practice with others. In an effort to share with yet more people, I wrote a book, and that book was published, and then it was on shelves in local shops in Salem, and then it was selling around the world. And for a little while, I found great peace in that, because I met so many wonderful people. But I knew that there was more; that there had to be more to all of this than the status quo.
So then I found my peace in history, digging through the dirt of ancient sites, far away. And I was right: there was more than the status quo. So then I began to bring that into my personal practice, and then I began to bring it into my teachings, and before I even knew what was really happening, I was building a whole new path; a new “tradition”, though I’m not terribly fond of that word, at all.
And as I climbed that mountain which in my private hours brings me so much peace, I quickly found that sharing it with the world often doesn’t. Yes, there are the rag tag rebels whose hearts it truly touches, and I thank the Gods for them every single day, but there are also those who are so ingrained in that other way of being that they will fight tooth and nail to uphold that status quo. And they are willing to stoop to venom, when necessary. Apparently with me, that venom is often necessary.
In order to regain my peace, I’ve decided to focus on those rebel hearts, because therein lies hope. Peace, after all, is built on hope. There’s a great quote from the new Star Wars films (which everyone seems to hate, and I don’t get why; I’ve been a Star Wars fan longer than some of the people screaming about the new films have even been alive):
“Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you see it, you’ll never make it through the night.”
Princess General Leia Organa
I will make it through the night, for I believe there are more rebel hearts out there, even when I can’t see them. And therein lies my potential peace.
It also lies within my cats’ purrs, and those long, delicious meals on the couch in front of the TV, and in foot rubs and bedtimes, and in making beautiful things, and in encouraging others to make beautiful things, and in my spiritual practice, and in digging in ancient dirt.
My hope for each of you, as the tide of the year turns, is that you may find the same simple peace that I am finding; that the seasons ahead will be good seasons, full of love and hope and mirth. May the sun shine for you, especially when it is unexpected, in those darkest hours. May there be more teaching than fighting, and more love and open-heartedness than spite or hate.
