I had vague plans for Oíche Shamhna — beyond the usual handing out candy as my husband took the kiddo trick or treating — but after an October where I was sick and then my husband got sick and stayed sick, and then I finally got the new covid vaccine (which, predictably, tanked me for a week), plans did not solidify and materialize beyond brief prayers.
Normally, that would have upset me, and I would have felt guilty for not being a better descendant to my ancestors and devotee to my deities, but instead I woke up on the first of November having had a profound dream, and very shortly after waking I was visited by a messenger from the High Court associated with the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I hadn't done work, but work had come to me. The dream featured Angrboda — a jotun goddess(1) who is perhaps best known as the other parent of Loki's most famous children: Hela, Fenris, and Jormungandr — teaching me to spin seidr with flax. I will need to go see her again to get the rest of it cemented in my mind, but the flax I bought online that day is coming in the mail. The messenger had news of a more personal nature for me (which is still something I haven't quite gotten used to), acknowledging the fulfillment of a contract.
If you had told me ten years ago that in ten years' time I would be up to my neck in Otherworldly conflict and politics, I wouldn't have believed you. Sure, I interacted with my Local Fair Folk then, but primarily the less powerful ones that wander about a bit, not the Gentry. But here I am and here I'll stay for good or ill. As John Beckett said recently: "sharpen the swords you have". This work is the sword I have, and I'll do it to the best of my ability, though I'll caution anyone else considering following this path that this is not a job you can just quit.(2)
In the intervening decade, I've interacted more and more with the Gentry — first those closest to my house wherever I was living, and then as time went on and I became more involved with the Court and Queen I serve in the Otherworlds, I was finding that I needed to "check in at the embassy" in every new territory before I did more than the smallest instinctive magics, which meant needing offerings for the local Gentry every time I went to any kind of pagan event, from a major conference like Mystic South or Sacred Space, to a small backyard holiday gathering at a friend's house.
And as I've done these check-ins, I've met more and more courts(3) who seem to be embroiled in the Otherworldly conflict that is part of The Great War, The Storm, Tower Time — whatever you'd like to call it. (I've taken to calling it the "Strife-Storm", recently, because it does seem to shift and build and release like weather. Although I was one of those who talked about it back in March under the term "Great War", that didn't fit as well once I took it out of Irene Glasse's metaphor and applied it to the Otherworldly conflicts I was seeing, but I didn't have better words back then! We'll see if "Strife-Storm" sticks, because I do really want a term to talk about the conflict itself, within the sort of larger context of Tower Time.) Part of my work for my Court is connecting with some of these courts I'm encountering, and doing some work to establish something like diplomatic ties that are grounded in this world, as well.
I've been tasked with keeping up these connections with semi-regular contact and offerings, and the picture on this blog is of my recently reorganized shrine, with most of the main courts I interact with all brought together. There are candles, and a few "tokens" (the pins and ring, all symbols of pledges made) and one little statuette of a husband and wife gnome kissing... That was a very specific request from the King and Queen of the High Court associated with the. I had asked how they wanted to be represented on my shrine; let it never be said that the fae don't have a sense of humor! The candle I used (and will continue using) for the Pleiades Cycle is on top of a box of trinkets and jewelry which has been the center point of my fairy shrine for most of the past decade. The rose candle is for the Queen of my immediate local area, and the two large candles are for the Monarchs of Spring and Autumn of the High Court associated with the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
In my last blog about the Strife-Storm, I mentioned battles, and those are ongoing but either less frequent, or I am less frequently aware of my part in them, which is more of a relief than anything else. Waking up feeling drained, tired, and sore with bruises I don't remember having is one thing; getting flashbacks of battlefield carnage I never saw with my physical eyes is quite another, and I'd very much prefer the first. But in general things seem to be more at an uneasy standstill by me. I heard reports of weirdness elsewhere during the last solar eclipse, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense, as the forces my allies are fighting against seem to be held at bay by solar energy. I do not know what to expect in the coming dark season, but it's always best to be prepared. And that's really what this week ended up being, for me: a time to contemplate the work of the summer, and to prepare for the work of the winter.
- Look, we can debate terminology and theology later in the comments if you like. But people pray to her and she answers, and that's goddess enough for me.
- You quit the Gentry just about the same way you quit the Mafia, which is to say: you're in for life (and in the case of the Gentry, potentially after death too: word to the wise).
- Here using the loose meaning of the word "court": just a group of some vague cohesion.