Happy Equinox, everyone. May Winter’s pall make way for Spring’s more inviting shawl.
As it looked through the haze
The Sun saw it then;
The seed was a seed no more,
But with Spring’s eyes
It had shed its disguise
And was coming at last
Into bloom.
Out at last
From Winter’s gloom.
(c) Michelle G, Northern Tamarisk, 2018
Loki is master of the grey-zone. In the Norse myths He walks a fine line between helping and betrayal. For the most part He’s the Retriever, the Gift Giver, the genial Companion. But He is also the One Who arranged Balder’s death (if you go solely by the Eddas – in Gesta Danorum it’s purely Hoder), the One Who understands that all cycles must come to an end in order for new growth and life to begin. In order for Change to be brought about sometimes we have to learn to let go.
Loki is behind every decision for growth that involves radical change and letting go. In both the metaphysical and literal sense, some things we know and love become what keeps us from stepping into a more transformative phase of growth. To move onto the next stage we have to learn to walk without them.
I came across this quote last night and thought it would be appropriate to share in time for Samhain. As we learn to embrace the nights drawing in we learn also to embrace the dark within, the cycle of decay associated with the coming of winter, and the things we have to release or let go of as cycles in our own lives come to their conclusion.
Access to light, day and night, is now considered by most a human right.
To the Pagan, that is ludicrous. More consciously aware of the power of light, and all that it allows, darkness is a profoundly potent word. It speaks of all that is hard to understand within nature, the infinite space of the universe, the energy of the night, of winter, of death, of decay and entropy. There are here no connotations of negativity; darkness is that which necessarily balances and embraces light. It contains those aspects of nature that are not known or not knowable, the void and the density, the mysteries beyond current comprehension. The word expresses all that could happen; in the poetry of Paganism, it is the cauldron of potential, the womb of rebirth, the rich mud in which the seed germinates.– Emma Restall Orr, Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics, ch. 2
When I took someone’s mis-representing words to heart after a big misunderstanding it plunged me deeper into my Underworld journey. They had targeted my connection to Spirit, and to Loki in particular. It brought me into my Dark Night of the Soul, where my channel went virtually silent.
Despite the assurances of two spirit workers concerning my connection/ channel, in the intervening months I still let fear win.
Things started to really shift last month, though, and on the day of the Autumn Equinox I did a lot of releasing work, as well as Shadow integration. The following day I just felt Loki and Sigyn there. I cannot describe how beautiful that certainty was; knowing it was Them. They were understanding of why I shut down the way I did, but were also very clear that I have to move on.
I first learned about the Mesoamerican culture in my teens in history classes. I also saw a program on the Discovery Channel and was hooked. I watched as many programs as I could, later turning to books – cenotes in particular fascinate me. I based a GCSE drama assignment on the Aztecs – something about an argument between the Sun God Huitzilopotchtli and the Moon Goddess Mitztli – I got to play Mitztli, complete with a big silver crescent moon tied to my head. I even went to an exhibition on the Aztecs in London and based an A-level art project on the statues I saw there. Quetzalcoatl, Xipe Totec and Coatlicue were particularly memorable. When I started exploring spirituality and opening up to Spirit I dreamed of two temples, and found out they were the Mayan temples of Tikal and Palenque. A few years ago the Mayan Goddess Ixchel seemed to come in a lot; never saying anything, but coming in during certain times of pain and making it known She was there. She is said to have founded Palenque.
For some of us 2016 has been a pretty rubbish year for a variety of reasons. Change happens, whether we want it to or not. The best we can do in the aftermath is to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, take a deep breath and start again.
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