I’m Doing this so You don’t Have to.

Actually there may be a dose of divine/mythic synchronization here involved in this lifestyle, but I thought I would speak on the realities one must surrender themselves to, in order to go the way of the gypsy. A confused, and ugly spirited mexican man recently told me “you’re homeless, you’re a bum, that’s all there is”… I looked him in the eyes and said “How can a man be homeless on earth?” He had just finished ego tripping on me, and ranting about how I was reflecting what he observed as a ‘higher way’ somehow in a negative fashion, stuck in the conflagration of a personal turmoil in which he could not hold his tranquility. He seemed offended by my calm and cohere answers to his belligerent feedback, and took offense to any remote action of altruism because of the apparent espousal of superiority he believed it to represent. Here I am, this one little guy, just being what I know how to be, and responsible only for myself, I am the only individual able to judge myself in right or wrong, and I have people constantly on my back trying to push off their own guilt, judgement, and shadows on me.

“I am doing this so you don’t have to”. My message to this world, is bringing peace, love, and coherence to society, and as long as I view traveling as a means to experience the cultures, spaces and places of the world, this will always be my play. In the words of Ram Dass “One must cultivate the presence of the witness”, of he who is not self-direct, but in tune with his or her own role and purpose of this world. From this perspective, I can understand, sympathize, and anticipate the antagonism, fear, rivalry, awe, love and fellowship this meandering vision takes form as. Not everyone wants to live in these polar opposites of emotion 24/7, and engage themselves with the totality of a nomadic lifestyle while keeping it together enough to still be useful in a more overarching sense of total existence. And not everyone can. I am not saying this is a elitist point of view, but simply seeing it AS IT IS, and SO BE IT. I do this so you don’t have to. In the way that one may risk their life for the benefit of their country, but this is not required for the whole.

The dharma of this work is a messenger, it is easily recognizable as an archetypal role, filled, and fulfilled by those called to take it up over the dawn of our time. Harsh opposition is met with by persons who think outside their mind, and cruelty is directed at him who corrects the lies. Those I can think of, that inspire and lead me in some form or manner might be the likes of outlaws, prophets, yogis, working men, wanderers, healers, philosophers, or a free loving hippie out on the road beside me, and I do believe there is a current of electricity that runs through these otherkin that unites them in their direction and actions in the world. You can make up your own mind on this one. These are not really new in essence, but fitting within a mosiac of personas that one can inhabit in this incarnation, BUT only if they are meant to. So, in saying “I am doing this so you don’t have to” I am only acknowledging a place of finding. No one can live without the expectation of complete acceptance or complete repulsion, but one can live with the truth that both of these will impress upon you. Not everyone likes a gypsy or a nomad, they see it as a threat to their secure reality. I have been thrown out of people’s houses for nothing more eschewing of a more domesticated demeanor or failing to serve them on hand and foot at all times. I have wandered without cause or attachment, in places unknown, in the dark so to speak, completely penniless and unable to speak the tongue of the men and women who lived there and left not as stranger, but as friend. In this reality, you can sleep in a cave, or a mansion and take both as the natural flow. The ‘negative’ always turns it’s circle and reaps the ‘positive’ the more one is susceptible and trusts in their way. I have worked my salt and earned my reputation of those who Know, who actually have metaphorically walked in my boots. he who has been a good Indian to his fellow men. And I ask people only if I were to make one demand that they actually slip into this reality, and experience it for oneself before espousing their own rhetoric of how they claim it to be.

Show them Wotan, and a fire will be lit in their hearts…

Rainbow Nomad

To live in the nature is a fine thing to experience, it is only the minority of the human collective who truly dare to surrender themselves to paradoxically simple lives, while the majority feel an inherit conditioning from birth to be or
behave a certain way. The Rainbow family are one growing tribe of folk that need no labels or boundaries to their shared freedom. For the last month, the wyrd sisters have kept me in Wales, for my last days in the W.I.S.E. islands. Capping off a fourteen month stay at the welsh rainbow gathering in Hay-on-the-Wye. Here, I was, and there I be.
From thee new moon to thee new moon, my hammock became my bed, strung gingerly neath the branches of an elder father oak. This is where I would come to terms with myself, shed old burdens, forge a path outwards, and contemplate romance under a big sky.

The ritual of the rising sun day egged out new rainbow people to the camp, others more seasoned in the ways of the gathering crawling from their shelters for vegan coffee and warmth by the sacred fire. The rainbow stew, that is, the eternal pots of porridge were already in the making. People stagger to food circle and fill their bellies. I enjoyed this routine, breaking our fast around the flames in a circle, and everyday new stories going through the vine as people congregate from all over Europe and World to one small horse field, bringing their history, their problems, but all their love first hand. This was my virgin rainbow gathering experience, but as an elder told me, ‘everyone is already a rainbow, they just don’t know it yet’. I came seeking nothing, expecting nothing, and wanting nothing, with only the slip of a tongue of any mention of a Rainbow Gathering in the WISE isles. It is to my honor I owe to three sun tanned tramps I met in Arizona at the TTT truckstop who first told me of the Rainbow. I had never heard such a thing, only now that hundreds if not thousands will gather for peace and take care of each other. They spoke of a large gathering in Utah, and I tried to find my way there later that year. Denied at the US homeland, maybe this was a sign, I wasn’t ready to bring my presence. Now I was finally here, stepping into a nearly empty field looking for some travelers to welcome me home, I gave up a comfortable situation where I was staying in a Celtic house with all the food I could want to join the congregation. And a long journey later, I came upon a small circle of vagabond children of the world, eating heartily, I was in the right place.

This was a time of purest intent and healing, I had just come off 7 months of hard labor, and my body begged to rest, the way a hobo seeks his tobacco. I knew that I shall contribute my hands and heart for The Family, but with this knowing came the need to allow myself to receive as well. Collecting wood, finding bliss, spring mission, sacred fire watching, food gathering, spiritual discourse, this was the be to pattern of the first half of the gathering for me. A steady rise in energy, like an Icelandic geyser until the power of surrounding energies peaks at the full moon. And there we held our numbers strongest, lsd and ganja were shifting hands, more drums circulated and rapped until the dawns, workshops were starting to happen. These are all sacred memories.

I recognized my time to heal, both this poor skeleton, and an absence of love in my life. Many a sister came my way with words and gestures of remedy, and brother with comradeship and collaboration. I met two lovers from Germany, a man named Bear, and a man named Lion, while I was Wolf in the pack, wise medicine women and powerful shamans, a fellow Icelander, a story teller from the island, and burgeoning new allies from Hungary, Spain, Netherlands, and Australia. The shared stories of these individuals were overwhelmingly inspiring, as I recanted my own tracks behind me. Tales of one man I met who lived in a cave for a year at the Cheddar Gorge, and a sister from my homeland who has been drifting for five years, almost entirely without money, while I listened in to a graying storyteller, smith poetry by the flames, who writes on the ground to make his way around. It was deeply moving to listen to one of the elders speak of his full circle around different Rainbow gatherings, through the Canary islands, Romania, Hungary, Spain and Wales, one year of this lifestyle, surely a noble way to live. He taught of his wisdoms gained from the Lakota, we sung Ayahuasca songs in the shade, and waxed on about medicina and nomad caravans.

A new feeling of power came to me after a shamanic breathwork session in a bell tent with two well experienced guides. It was a physical trip for me, a higher vibrational travel of my physically inert body, going through different layers of the earth, embracing pacha mama, the trees, the water, the air, the animal that is me, and coming out the other side where I began. This set the course of a talk about the Hopi Indians, their prophecy and the creators law with another elder with Nordic heritage who also spent time with the grandfathers. I received a medicine wheel. stick and poke tattoo under the sanctuary oak tree some days later from a German comrade, in a ceremonial way with Aztecan music and a sacred fire. I had all the time in the world, for anything I desired. The vistas of the Brecon Beacons, perceived during one climb in the hills were medicinal to the soul.

The double rainbow bridge did shine amongst the darkest of days of the gathering as a negative energy seemed to manifest and dissipate from the outside, while the family injected their love into its remedy. Ideas began to manifest in the minds of the collective for a permanent gathering as the days began to wane, everyone had co-mingled and were initiating new plans, while others simply waited for that voice we call conscience to pull them. My own journey now takes me back to the land beyond the north winds, Thulean Iceland for scouting of new Rainbow land, venturing in open country and maybe a little old time work on the side. The path of the nomad will eventually lead me back into my labor forays, perhaps in the Scandinavia countries, but it has taken on a new caliber. I see myself traveling with an ally for the first time in over two years wandering alone, it won’t last long for my self styled pattern will shift rails soon, then I shall find myself in Mexico and South America at the end tide of this year.

We share our lives out of the love to BE, there are now three families that I can call to for brother, sister, mother, father. I am part of the all that is the gypsy caravan of Rainbow people. In my heart is set the compass to follow the gathering through Europe in another year of age, and I will know when that time is only through intuition and initiation. Whether it is a journey on foot of a hundred miles, a horse trek through mountains or the aerial navigation of borders, I look forward to those words again, Welcome Home.

 

“When the earth is ravaged and the animals are dying,
a new tribe of people shall come unto the earth from many colors, classes, creeds,
and who by their actions and deeds shall make the earth green again.
They will be known as the warriors of the Rainbow”
– Old Native American Prophecy –

Tramp Life Chapter 4: Finding the Clan

If there is no better purpose to wander alone, it is to discover the clan that you actually have. Out in the world, a tramp wanders from state to state, country to country, and continent to continent. An outcast usually, from societies eyes, always on the run, and living far from civilization. Company is held more often with the animals than humans, but in those far places, others of the same ilk choose to dwell. In those cores of activity, like a hive of wasps, vagabonds, hobos, tramps and the like will congregate, and discover they are not so different from one another, or at least their similarities are far more revealing, and their differences unique.

My own personal journey has been following a grail. I have been on the road for nearly 17 months, on the path of self sacrifice to the higher self. My homeland is Canada, but my grail land is Scandinavia. In a matter of 2-3 years I see myself setting down the first roots in a new land, and building a stable homestead, either in Bergen, Norway or the farm country of Iceland. I realized this was what I wanted 9 years ago, and have been chasing it since, chipping away at the stone, learning skills, building reputation, and collecting contacts around the world in order to mete out a methodical and dignified approach to migrating there. Along the way I have met people who have taken interest in the tribal ideals of sharing a sacred property,
the construction of cabins, buildings and smithies, creating holy ve for the heathen gods on the land, and opening the territory to those who are seeking, and are of like mind. To build such a thing requires a lot of time, careful planning, willingness, and unfortunately that old bane, money, at least to get started. To be completely self sufficient is the apex of what the lifestyle would come to, using permaculture principles so that the nature will not be exploited. To do all of this takes something else than skill and monetary funds though, there must be a culture who knows how.

The Culture: is a band of people; farmers, travellers, heathens, outlaws, builders, artists, and homesteaders. Those who know what is takes to hold a role that is intrinsic to the clanic lifestyle. Those who have either spent their early years in villages, and carry a lot of traditional knowledge or have attained their wisdom along the way. In this modern industrial havoc age, this spiritual ice age and time of social downfall, the tribe has become degraded as backwards, criminalistic folk who are old fashioned, un-intelligent, and dangerous. This heap of abuse against the organic instinct of the community has so far carried on mostly unnoticed except for those involved. If you read the Survival.com news, or some of the Vice world news, you will come across such articles about the killing, exploitation, and raping of a peoples way, not only their lives, but their internity. As someone closely affiliated with the tribal ways, and bent on the same trail of living a nomadic, agrarian, and spiritual lifestyle, I find this painful in mine own heart. When I read an article about how Indigenous american women are sexually abused and murdered, or the Pacific Coast tribes who now have no drinking water, and losing their land, their iconic animals (Spirit Bear), and their customs because of encroachment, disaster, and development, it rips apart out of me as well. The damage is does to the primordial method of living is immesurable.

I know part of my role in this life is to keep old ways alive, as a member of the Rune Gild, as a heathen, and as a human being. I am impelled to give of myself to my fellow man or woman, for those who truly deserve it. I travel so I can bring people together, through relationships, through lovers, or friends. Those who may otherwise not meet because of distance, and who are known close kin. When enough of these people are gathered in the right place, there is a particular spirit which is shared. The hamingja, is of a tribal essence, where pre-conceived barriers of social class, criminality, wealth, or life experiences become gray and irrelevant. A conciousness is born out of this rite of the gatherings. Each strives to attain to the highest human endeavor of building something within that is larger than any individual entity can.

Roadkill Blóts

The Blót has and always will be a sacred Germanic heathen tradition, and I have been counsel and vitki to a number of Blóts in the last two years, since joining the Rune Gild, and an old member of the Galdragildi. There are heathens that will always delineate from how and when a Blót should be performed, the animals acceptable for sacrifice to the Gods, and the killing methods. Witch each variable allowing for a completely different experience. Seeing multiple animals as Blót, is far more dynamic and emotional than seeing one, though even watching a single sentient lifeform suffer is never very pleasing. This had put an idea in my head about the Blót, the nature of animal suffering, and gifting to the gods.

It is written in the Havamal, and many sagas, how gifts are paid with gifts, and when bestowed by the Gods and Goddesses, one should humble themselves to acknowledge their value, and in turn give what they have back. Running on the idea of animals dying, one asks for what cause, and which animals, can all of them be as useful to the gods, even if one did not die at the hands of a heathen? Could they be given Blót is discovered per se on the side of the road, or in the forest, or by the waters edge. There are so many animals dying at the hands of the human in our age, one only need read Re:wilding North America to read the facts and numbers of fauna mortality per year and from the dawn of the agrarian age. It is occurring more and more that I am finding unnatural deaths on my travels, and the recurring pattern is with smaller finds leading to more dramatic or whole finds. If I take a two hour walk, it is common for me to find feathers, then a bone or two, some fur, a dead reptile, and then once in a while a complete skeleton, like the rabbit carcass I found yesterday, a moose I dredged out of a swamp in the west, deer mangled on railway tracks, full crows, ravens, and possums. I have always felt the imperative need to offer something in order to receive it’s medicines, if I were to collect any.

Alas, this is where I am getting. When I found the rabbit carcass, I asked for it’s gifts, and took the foot, one ear, the skull and tattered pelt for taufrverk, and offered the meat and bones for the turkey vultures for a sky burial which sat brooding in a tree watching me collect first. I did not know exactly which God/Goddess I was giving to, but knew there was a message of Ansuz, permeating through intention towards and within whoever or whatever steared my wyrd to find the rabbit in the first place. This led me to think that instead of truly ‘sacrificing’ this animal, I helped it move to the next incarnation instead of being ‘dead meat’ on the road, or something to clean up. I shared in the bounty of the animals gifts, and offered that which was more useful to the land wights, through the avians and minifauna who would later take every piece. In this way, it was Blót for the landvaettir, with runic galdor, and the sacred re-purposing of another life that may be incarnated again to a higher life. This was not the first time I have done something similar and not the only time I came to this idea. I have given crows and ravens burials in soil, so they may rest intact without having the staring eyes of non-empathic people, I have staked one to a strong tree with wings outspread, made of others in sacred taufrs during shamanic ritual and almost always offer or leave something in return; another bone, galdor poetry, runic wode, a feather, my hair or blood.

What I inquest is to whether others also perform these ‘roadkill Blóts’, and given their nature of being sporadic, what were their experiences with it? During a normal Blót for any heathen ceremony such as Yule, there is the element of troth and kinship, while the animal is most often eaten after hallowed by the Gods. The animal may be raised by a member of the community, and planned out long ahead of time. With an impromptu death find, it is solitary, instinctually magical, in the moment, and more raw. The animal is always in a more damaged state, and may take more courage to pick up a bleeding, broken fox, than does a clean ordinary chicken. But both are just as vital to the :G:ebo sentiment. If you are to find that an animal dies because of the wyrd of human beings, there is a reason you have found it, and will you pass on like everyone else and let it be just inanimate matter, or will you see the life, gifts, and medicine it still carries, and give it a proper sending. I have met with many a fetch this way, and understood myself to more animal, by the ancient primordial laws. Through sacrifice, soa, and sharing in the life-wyrd of other sentient creatures.

 

Wintruz Sistō bioregional rite

The written rite here was performed by me at Cilurnum (Chesters Roman fortress and Bathhouse) on Hadrians Wall, while Tristan and Sam did their own different ritual in the dunes at Riverside County. We were separated by thousands of miles (Northumbrian country/California badlands) in a mutual act of the halting of the sun’s entropy, the light returning to stream solward, as the days now grow longer.

Sitting in the Roman bathhouse facing the River Tyne, beside a sheep farm, and galdoring runic seeds to kindle the fires of the central axis
:U: (grounded point)
:A: (mind)
:I: (gut)
:E: (heart)
:O: (core)

Repeated this until the seed sounds blended together, the chest as the resonance chamber, and echoing in the skull. A blazing wheel of light as each runic hvel is galdored. (later reflecting on this, I can see the symbolic lighting up of each runic hvel/wheel as I galdored them as the brightness and light coming back to the folk. Internally, the Lik is emblazoned with a brighter effulgence of inner light) The movement draws the rune current/reiki inwards then outwards, non stopping, like a Torus that expands and contracts in all and into one.

Sounding the steer horn several times loudly in the portal windows, and then chanting stanzas from the Havamal for the conquest of nature. ALE runes drawn over my horn. :A:L:E: becoming intoxicated on the Lindisfarne mead, then I poured some on the foundation, and read off the prose I had written

Dyrmegin, ally, and guide
Lead me where others cannot access
In the astral, and places of awe

Dyrmegin, bandamann, og fylgja
Leiða mig þar sem aðrir geta ekki opnað
Í Astral, og stöðum ótti

Taking draughts of mead and intoning of :WINTRUZ: (WIIIINNNN-TRUUUUZZZZ) with deep throat singing. The sound reverberated in the stone walls, and out onto the other rooms. I was left unbothered for the duration of the ritual.

Remember the folk at Yule
Hail the gods and goddesses
Stave off the fimbul winter
and let us come out of the dark cold nights
with fire in our blood
and a hearth in our house
and good company

ARAHARI chanting in the portal windows, blowing the horn again several times as the sky darkened and :Jera: spun round, so that we may grow and wax in the new year.

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A natural selector instead of a romanticist

I often identify my animistic nature with that of a wolf, but I feel the need to delineate the romantic attachment that pervades for totem animals. The wolf, whether it be dire, ezo, thylacine, grey, tibetan, ethiopian, etc. is the most direct manifest of my human personae, the totemic bond is universal rather than species based. But this is not the only animal I find myself affected by, I don’t just choose this one because of it’s commonly perceived power or wild energies. I am subjected to any scope of experiences throughout life, and as a lover of new experiences I find myself to be under different environmental, social, relationship, ethical, spiritual, and transitory currents where the psychosomatic bonds with only one animal does not help me. Whether I have met them or not, in the astral or real life is not always important either, and sometimes the lack of knowledge draws me even more to certain types. Here is some animals I feel incarnate at the very least in a mental state from time to time.

Camel/Yak: When I am taking long walks on summer days, like any diurnal creature usually does, the physical exertion tends to expose my physiological capabilities and creates barriers and apprehension of continuing. I think of a camel or yak, who seem to be illimitable stamina conquerors, surviving in the livestock and domestic stage and cultivated by nomads for thousands of years. They are conservative beasts that have some of the farthest ranging territories of macrofauna. They are slow moving, but conscious, as if in a meditational embrace of the landscape. They remind me to slow down my life, or my hikes when needed and overall to not waste energy, where time becomes irrelevant.

Horses: These are for companionship, when I seek someone will just listen I have often met with tamer horses in fields, and fed them. No matter how acclimatized they have become to their masters, they are open minded to meet new people. No matter stuck I am in a routine, I can diverge and create the cleft that lets me explore

Birds of Paradise: The artistic nature and displays of courtship really speak to my social sides. I like to go out of my way to impress people and always show my best qualities to my mate. These birds are also extremely creative nest builders (known as bower birds) and will use found forest items, organic materials and man made objects to create elaborate natural architecture and specialized nests or displays.

Reindeer: So perfectly adapted to all weather and mutually bound in a very unique relationship with many northern Scandinavian and Arctic cultures like the Sami. The reindeer or any species of deer is my travel spirit, they are always moving, and are nomadic. Their territories can range thousands of miles, and they travel in herds just as grand. My inability to stay in one place for very long before seeking new land, after extracting the resources in one is the way in which I can relate to the reindeer. Also the stamina of the deer, especially in northern Finland during their 3,000 mile migration, river crossing, herding, and trotting along open plains whilst enduring cold. I love to take very long hikes, a vagabond of the land enduring the elements and the satisfaction at the end of the journey, which always comes with comfort.

Capuchin monkey (also other primates like gorilla, and chimpanzee)Our biological as well as mental relationship can’t be denied, outside of a totemic sense, Darwin proved this in ‘The Origin of the Species’. I feel obliged as a human being to somehow form a connection to them beyond merely acknowledging them as my closest animal hominid ancestors. When I go to climb trees, I am a primate. My limbs are more flexible and adaptable to the branches contours. I can conform my body to the twisting stature of trees for balance. I spent hours at the zoo just watching the monkeys, and seeing the resemblances in their actions to use. Their mental capabilities, capabilities to remember patterns and solve human made problems are deeply fascinating. I am soon to be making a symbolic adoption of a capuchin being held at a monkey sanctuary and hopefully to become more aware of them. They have the same higher emotions that homosapiens do, they feel remorse for the dead, and have been observed mourning over their kin. They understand play, and rules, and use tools for getting food. I feel when observing monkeys that I establish a deeper sense of non-verbal communication.

Goats: The goats are metaphorical symbols of opposition when taken in a religious context. This is my adversarial nature. They are sometimes depicted as being free from the herd or pertaining to the dark. They are scavengers of resources, and also very helpful to humans since they provide many practical uses as livestock. They are mostly docile when approached but can be vengeful when confronted in the wrong way. My passive aggressive nature is precisely this. I try to avoid hostility and make attempts at being social, but will not let others cross my borders.

And so the totem pole stands it’s ground, and new faces are carved out of it’s emblem.

First Fasting

In many shaman cultures and secret societies or religions, the custom of fasting in commonly held as a strong belief or initiation rite. Words have been spoken of the spiritual or transcendental aspects of food offerings or food sacrifices, to deities, extreme forms of asceticism, or symbolic of the anti-material self. I decided I would try a short fast just to see what would happen.

The plan was to sustain myself on sheer reserves for two days, on only tea and coffee. I wanted the organic herbs in the tea to supplant my food supply, and the coffee would help me suppress the hunger. I had tea with lotus extract, a detox tea, and an ayurvedic tea altogether, and coffee with soy milk. At first I was half expecting to experience more sensory music listening, which did happen to a degree and probably would have increased If I did a longer one. I also though I might experience more lucid dreams, but alas, did not because I rarely dream. Perhaps there is not enough dopamine in my system, or my mind has too much thought from the days left over and goes on functioning during the nocturnal hours. I did however seem to connect with the animal, which is why I place this in the otherkin section. I believe this could be interpreted as a totemic relationship because by denying myself the food, I felt within, physiologically and mentally, the constant need for food that an animal needs. Being a privileged homosapien with grocery stores and all-season food available at almost any time of day, we get carried away with what is essentially primal to us, and take advantage of these needs. This is directly why there is so much unhealthy and non-nourishing food, developing from monoculture and processed food. It is no longer sacred to us, and we should hold it as such. Food is sacred, because food is growth (devoid of any pseudo-soul meaning here). If we don’t have it we’re fucked. A quote by Les Stroud repeated through my head several times, “Do you want to taste the best food in the world?, Just try going two days without it” After 36 hours I felt that I could have experienced all I really wanted, even though an astral out of body effect could have been had if the conditions and atmosphere were different. I had a proper meal after 38 hours. I did however find peace whilst on a walk in the park, sitting on an isolated rock in the dark with minimal clothing and the wind whipping around. I was more aware of my place in space, and this was maybe the most enlightening of all. I could feel things and was more rooted to the soil I walked on, the sensations of the cold, the sight of water glistening under a waning moon, the broken leaves tearing the fabric of the air, and the stillness when I closed my eyes. All of it was very nice

Growing the psychosocial TOTEM

Black Grouse, you… beating incessantly in a portion of the trees to great for me to observe thee. The double bass beat of thine wings rather exotic to the screaming and singing of your smaller winged friends. A call to protect the forest from invasion. In the eve’ a woodgrouse plays, and flutters off to a mossy limb.

(this is the black grouse I would hear constantly while encamped in my tent during an arduous tree planting season. After a rough day in the logging blocks, while settling down to music or lying peacefully on my fur waiting for sleep I would hear it beating its wings, looking for a mate, it sounded like drums, and such an alien sound to me, accustomed to the familiar fauna of the south)

Red Fox, you… conspicuous vagabond ov the urban night away from your sheltered den by the gravel paths, nary a common guest but surely a hospitable one. Approaching so close, just to heighten thine own sense ov smell. Staring into my own orbs transmitting a lesson of awareness. Then trotting the path with leather foot into dark alleys fairly traveled.

(As I was laying one night under a lamp outside in a park after reading, I heard an unmistakable sound of paws on cement but those too small for a dog. I turned my head up and a fox was glaring at me in the orange light, we exchange this for a mere couple seconds then as casually as a cat it continue on the path through the alley which I had walked from my house)

Northern black bear, you… with a lumbering grace through permeable foliage of saplings, rising with a seeking accordance towards higher fruit. Like a wraith ov black regalia, intimidator to brotherly fauna and humans alike, but a comrade to those who understand. An initial scare for want ov survival but then the spiritual presence wafted back to me at the roadside.

(At a trail that was partitioned in two, high on a trail of a Northern Canadian forest, I saw this black shape moving through the woods. I thought it was someone with a black hoodie, but the way it rose from it’s hind legs was obvious it was a bear. It did not see me and I escaped, through bush and over uneven rocks back to the road, just in case it had not satisfied its hunger on berries and leaves yet)

Coyotes, you… was it with your mate or your pack alpha I stood bewildered in sight for your escape to the bushes? A rare pleasure in the nocturnal hours besides the rapids. You tunnel through the head-high grass and set up your sleeping chamber in the reed bed for a night or two, perchance. Will you return on future nights of wanderlust?

(Just a couple nights ago, as I was turning my direction back from a cold night walk, two coyotes crossed the path, one following the other, with a seeming un-bothered fashion.  Certainly they saw me before I them, but vanished towards where to the lake near where I live, which is covered in enough grass and plant growth to hide them)

Wolf, you… domestic for us but still a true wild heart, resting in slumber with your kin. In no mood for play, you know they are unworthy of watching. A cut of land, hardly enough for three with a moat keeping you dormant, a melancholic yawn and tired eyes to pass the time.

(Meditating on the sight of a wolf at a zoo, the only one I have seen so far)

Hawk, you… standing guard like a viking on your swollen rocky peak. It looming over lake deep, 300 feet and 300 more below the broken waters. Uttering guttural incantations, higher pitch, as I approach thee. Then departing in a swift to a more remote precipice surveying from afar.

(This was at the same place I saw the bear, a hawk was on the edge of the lookout where I was hiking and giving me a look of caution lest I come closer, I thought it was protecting a brood and it may have had a nest around.)

Moth, you… flitting and abiding on my shoulder and no around my shovel, conveying truths and perseverance to me, adorned in filth. Clambering over dead stumps I stumble and you follow, your fragility the essence of my strength.  I find you again, waiting for me. Then I sit clad in sol & shade pondering the day.

(When I was tree-planting, I injured my hand and could not be doing anything heavily industrious for some time, but then I tried to plant again and damaged it even further where it become slightly infected. One moth kept circling me when I was skeptical about continuing and landed several times on my shoulder, arm and shovel, then I walked back to the logging road and it was on my pack which was well over a hundred feet away and there were several other packs to land on. After this I decided to stay no matter what occurred to me bodily)

White-tail deer, you… just a dashed wave ov fur and hide through monumental bark. Without sound, out from your plantation home on the dense ground.

(in a Northern Ontario town, just on a nature walk, this deer almost flew through the branched yet did not make the typical crunching sounds at it hopped away, it was like a spectre because I only saw bits of fur and tail)

Skunk, you… scavenger of leftover’s, your feast for the darkened times. A true practical mammal, leaving nothing to waste, the pulpits ov your eyes concealed. The chiaroscuro pattern of your hair so elegant, retaining your odoriferous spray, as I do not intimidate your borders.

(Watching a skunk perform its city hunt for human trash and dead matter. I approached one on two occasions but it spray me, taking me for a friend and not an enemy.)

Vulture, you… hissing your brutal note, just as a shadow without definite form. Late, and unknown. High in the gnarled arms ov the trees as they hold you aloft.

(I was with my, now ex-lover, and we took a calming night exploration into a forest beside a river. We we talking, each leaning up against a tree, and one vulture from above started hissing at us. Its feathers and body seemed to blend into the branches, but when we retired from its abode we could only hear it in our minds)

All of these encounters were just times in my life when I felt connected to a certain animal in one way or another. It either offered me a glance into their life or interacted with me somehow.

β Ω

I know intrinsically that I identify with the wolf as my spiritual vector. The wolf has for as long as I had affection for animals been a homogenous part of my own existence, substantiating many traits, desires, and growths that have proved themselves as relevent to my life path on this planet. Only quite later have I found out of which particular place my spirit as wolf takes though. I used to identify heavily with an lone-wolf, or even in extreme cases as Alpha. The latter being an unfortunate side-effect of my immaturity, and drive to confront others, and control, and with a rather violent disposition. This was part of an extreme ego as well, and I drifted far from being an Alpha, and oft time felt the new attachment to a lone wolf, this also unveiled itself in ways that I would try to escape
or be hermit-like in my nature to avoid contact with others altogether. It was rooted simply in a nihilistic contempt for teaching and social strata. I have been reading a copious amount of writings and experiences of others pertaining to animal totemism, and also my personal biological and psychological studies
of wolves, their prey and ecology, and truly feel that I belong as most times an Omega, balanced with Beta.

The Omega wolf still retains the perfect wolf nature, but tends to be non-confrontational and more pensive in it’s attitude. It survives with the pack, and is often an observer that will let others act before it and then learn from personal experience. The Omega is still revered by other wolves for it’s protective nature. The Beta, being the second hand to the Alpha and will choose to enter new territory or fight and defend, but usually only when provoked or intruded upon. It is very mutual with other wolves, like it’s mate, and supports the pack dynamics by reinforcement. I find my will to power, and adversarial mindset to align quite fittingly to a Beta position. My loyalty, as the Beta is usually affiliated with an Alpha or another Beta as an equal, and choosing to dedicate themselves to anything that serves their fitness, strength, and niche as I hold very true to my own practices. If I experience the Beta role, I can be as prey hungry as possible, and will fight to defend my terrirtory. The repressed peimitive feelings once provoked will find the agitator left with their weaknesses. The Omega also acts as one from which love and tranquility is restored to the pack. With hostility, or indifferences, this wolf will ease the tension and show affection or longing for the others in the pack. When I make an offering, symbolically or physically, to those who have had an impact on my life, it is to show respect, light submissiveness, love, and nobility in the same ways reflected from the inter-dynamic connections of each wolf’s status.

I also want to identify of my general inability to cope with mere human beings. It is suffering in one aspect, and something deeply psychological that can not be altered. It is hard to cope in this portion of eternity,
when mankind creates his supremacy over animals, and postulates the importance of luxury and convenience. Evolution to me, is always in co-existence with nature, and as a mass, humans have lost this touch. They are few who hold sacred the ‘wildeor’, the self-willed integration of flesh and mind for nature itself. Being physically a human, but identify with some other species at any given time is part of me, and my reverence and longing for not forgotten animal traits and primal needs is extremely intimate. My connection to modern values, success and beliefs are almost devoid of meaning.

Lupine pack communication: with wolf sister Lupa the Greenwolf!

For those who don’t know, Lupa is a shaman living in Portland. She is a prolific artist, (I have always wanted to be interviewed as an artist myself), and a practitioner in pagan culture. Regularly part of events, and shaman dances, you might see her at Howl Con if you live in the area.

When you submerge yourself into the skin spirit rituals with a given animal, do you feel the inherit traits in each one, or is it just a means for communication solely with the animal totem? Do mammalia, or predatory have more challenging and intimidating energies, than perhaps reptilia and fish, who might be more passive?

It’s both; when I wear my wolfskin, I connect with both the spirit of the skin, and the totem Gray Wolf as well. Part of why I do this skindancing is to offer the spirits of the skins a way to have a body again, to move and dance. In return, I get a chance to feel a bit of what it’s like to be that animal.

It really depends on the individual skin spirit (or other animal spirit), as well as the totem of the species. People think of predatory mammals as being big and aggressive, which they can be, and dragonflies as being graceful and relatively harmless. Yet in their own world dragonflies are ruthless killers driven primarily by the needs to eat, to mate, and to not be eaten, while lions and wolves have complex social systems in which they can be tender and loving to each other. We have to be careful not to let our biases as humans intrude.

If you can dig far into your brain and remember, can you write the different animal parts you have worked with?

Oh, geez. Soooo many over the last decade and a half. Hides, bones, claws, teeth, feathers, hair and more. My art has brought me into contact with so many of them that there’s no way to catalog them all. Probably the most unusual has been dried horseshoe crabs; they’re such ancient beings and they see the world in such a different way than we land-dwelling upstarts. Keep in mind we’re talking a family of animal that has the existence of living trilobites in its ancestral memory.
Do you do much bone hunting or carrion collecting in nature? How is this while always having a cyclus of dead critters to work with, living in an apartment and trying to clean them? Do you prefer to bury them and the decay happen naturally?

Not any more. Now that I’m primarily an urban dweller, I don’t have easy access to places where animal bones might be found. Also, roadkill collection is illegal here in Oregon. And because I am in an apartment that I share with another person, I don’t have the room to deal with something quite so messy—all we have is one tiny porch that’s mostly covered in garden and barbecue grill. I’d rather make the art than tan hides anyway; I leave the messy bits to others these days.

I once found an eagle in the north, with no head. Another time with my ex, we found an opossum and a dead cat, both of them had fetuses inside, and the opossum fetuses were still living, crawiling out of the pouch while the mother lay rotting in some grass. What has been the strangest animal death you have discovered?

Really, none of the ones I’ve seen have been unusual. Everything’s been attributable to natural causes. There were the many tiny crabs washed up after a storm on the Oregon coast, and countless animals hit by trains in my hometown, and the huge pile of deer bones left by hunters at the end of a quiet rural cul de sac in rural Oregon

I suppose the only notable death I ever came across was the doe that was hit on the road in front of a house I lived in in Pittsburgh. The doe had been hit by a car, and it shattered her jaw and leg. She stumbled around until a cop showed up and shot her, and they just rolled her into the ditch in front of the house. It was summer, and over the next week I watched the progress as the maggots reduced her to mostly bones. Once she was clean enough I pulled her up into the garden and let her decay the rest of the way before harvesting the bones.

What does kink represent and hold for you? Do you think it is the most intimate way to tie into sexual spirituality, and bringing the body to new levels of consciousness?

I think it’s one of many ways in which a person can be sexual. I don’t think it’s any more special or intimate than vanilla, but I do feel there are certain levels of intensity that it can hold that are unique to it. Kink can be a ritual even without the conscious intent thereof, and much of more formalized BDSM, especially D/s or M/s, can be very ritualized.

The importance of any sacred sexuality is how it transforms you. Do you become a better person for it? Do you feel better and healthier afterward? Then you did it right.

In more recent years I have distanced myself from a lot of sacred sexuality because I see so little attention paid to a lot of the inequalities in sexuality in the US. People treat women as “sacred Goddesses” to be worshiped, but do nothing to fight discrimination against and oppression of women as a group. Heterosexual sex is held up as a standard of “balanced energies” while homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia still exist even within paganism and sacred sexuality. Rape and sexual assault happen in these communities, as well as the kink community, and often they’re ignored.

And, honestly, I have become more private and personal about my sex life. I asked my ex-husband Taylor to take “Kink Magic” out of print more because it was a symbol of our marriage, and it was a form of closure, not because I regretted it. But these days I keep my cards closer to the chest, at least as far as details go. I don’t go to public kink events any more and I have zero interest in public scening. 

As one who also identifies with my spirit animal to be that of a wolf, I am curious what you think of the various wolf conservation areas? Do you think this poses problems and domesticates wolves when they have human care, and are then released?

From what I have seen, the people who raise wolf pups to be released into the wild are very careful not to acclimate the pups to human companionship. I see this as a very good thing; wild animals need to be truly wild, not quasi-domesticated.
Are you fond of the concept of human Re:wilding? If you do, how do you integrate yourself into it? Do you practice any kind of self-sustainability, growing food, owning land, reducing possessions, etc?

I feel that the more skills we have, the better, no matter the sort. As Robert Heinlen said, “Specialization is for insects”. I am in a tiny apartment, and I don’t really have a proper garden so I have to rely on grocery stores and farmers’ markets for my food, but my intent is once I have some more stability across the board and can buy a house, I want it to be a place where I can turn the yarn into garden, raise rabbits, etc.

I do try to not consume more than I have to. Outside of books and clothing, most of my possessions are art supplies and therefore temporarily “mine”. I don’t collect tchotckes and the like, and I’d rather people gave me food as gifts than toys and such.

I have been developing more outdoor skills; I didn’t go camping until my early twenties because I never had the opportunity. My family didn’t like outdoor stuff other than backyard barbecues, and I didn’t really have friends until I was an adult. So I’ve been trying hard to build up missing skills, and I recently went solo backpacking for the first time earlier this month. And I’m doing more to educate myself about the flora and fauna of the area; I’d still starve out in the wild at this point, but maybe a little more slowly.
Have you had thoughts about making displays of taxidermy into art scenes to unveil something atypical with their spirits? Like having a wolf mount feeding on real entrails with dead trees, detritus on the ground, and raven mounts with rare stones for eyes in the trees? Sort of like a still life after death.

I have some plans for things to do with reclaimed taxidermy, but I’m keeping that under wraps for the moment.

Do you do much tenting in the nature to be further in touch with your wild personality, and animal atavisms?

Not as much as I’d like, but every time I’m out there, whether hiking or camping, alone or with others, it’s a connection to the inner wild self, my own Wolf, as well as to everything around me. My shamanic practice has become more more bioregional and localized once I moved to Oregon, and so I don’t just work with the animals, but also plants, fungi, waterways, geological totems, etc.

There are practices now to create life using ‘biobricks’ that can stimulate primitive life using a computer. As well as gene transplanting through different animals, such as taking spider silk and putting it inside a goat to collect the silk from its milk, or using camouflage squid cells in farmed plants. What are you thoughts on modern science and experimental biology?

I think it’s going in some truly fascinating directions. However, I also think that like so much of our technology we’re too self-centered. We look only to our own needs, and not how our technology affects other humans and other beings as well. I am not entirely against genetic engineering, especially in the medical field, but we don’t think nearly enough about ethical and other implications and realities of our explorations. In the words of Stan Lee, “With great power there must also come great responsibility”. Spider-man is far from the only example of that.

Tell me about some of the festivals you have been apart of, pagan, occult, music or otherwise, and what you did there.

Holy cripes. There have been so many! I’ve been to festivals across the country from Florida to New York to Washington. (Oddly enough I haven’t been to any in the southwest!) Primarily pagan in flavor, with occasional others. I cut my teeth at Brushwood Folklore Center in New York state; in addition to a roster of yearly festivals, they have drumming and dancing every weekend when the weather permits. So I got a lot of good experience there; it’s where I first did public wolf-dancing, and met a lot of awesome people. I also wish I’d spent more time at Four Quarters Farm in Pennsylvania; the few times I went there I was really impressed with the energy as well as the rituals there.

I’ve gone to lots of events here in the Northwest, at though certainly not all of them. One of my very favorites is Sunfest, held every summer solstice out on the Oregon Coast. I’m going to be leading the rituals there next year (2013) with a shamanic/totemic theme—more info soon! Anyway, it’s a nicely laid-back, family-friendly festival, and it’s become one of my favorite things of the year.

And then there’s FaerieWorlds, which isn’t so much a pagan festival as a bunch of people dressing up in fantasy costumery and having a great time with excellent music. I don’t usually get to leave my booth much because I’m usually too busy working and selling art and costumes to people, but because everybody comes to visit, they bring the festival to me.

If there is a time that creating dead animal art, and having such a prolific artistic routine becomes too much, is there anything you want to accomplish or try before your own life spirit dies off?

I want to own my own home; I’m tired of having to audition every time I move to prove to some rental company that I deserve to have a place to live. Less mundanely, I want to do something with the Master’s in counseling psych I was awarded last year after three years of graduate school. Assuming I don’t get hit by a bus or develop cancer, I should be able to do both of these before all’s said and done.

Any last howls, from a fellow lupine creature to another?

Besides “buy my art and books”? Heh—I kid, mostly. Well, keep in touch—I write stuff at http://therioshamanism.com, as well as http://nature.pagannewswirecollective.com, and all things Lupa can be found at http://www.thegreenwolf.com. I like hearing feedback from people who’ve read my books and so forth, and I like hearing about the adventures of my art that has gone on to other homes. Plus I’m open to questions and thoughts about shamanism, totemism, and the like.