Progressive Dreams...

Out of the ruins and rubble
Out of the smoke
Out of our night of struggle
Can we see a ray of hope?
One pale thin ray reaching for the day

We can build a beautiful city
Yes, we can; Yes, we can
We can build a beautiful city
Not a city of angels
But we can build a city of man

We may not reach the ending
But we can start
Slowly but truly mending
Brick by brick, heart by heart
Now, maybe now
We start learning how

We can build a beautiful city
Yes, we can; Yes, we can
We can build a beautiful city
Not a city of angels
But we can build a city of man

When your trust is all but shattered
When your faith is all but killed
You can give up, bitter and battered
Or you can slowly start to build

A beautiful city
Yes, we can; Yes, we can
We can build a beautiful city
Not a city of angels
But finally a city of man.

Binge Watching Marathons...

Krákumál (Death Song of Ragnar Lodbrok)

We hewed with the brand!
Long since we went to Gothland for the slaying of the Worm,
There I won Thora and my name of Leathern-Breeches,
Since I pierced that serpent through, with my blade of inlaid steel.

We hewed with the brand!
Young was I when east of Oere-sound we made good breakfast for the wolves,
While our steels sang on the high-crested helms much food did they find,
Blood-stained the sea, the ravens waded through.

We hewed with the brand!
Ere twenty years passed o'er us, high-borne were our spears,
At Dvina's mouth in the far east eight jarls did we lay low,
Warriors died; the crimson death colored the sea and ravens feasted.

We hewed with the brand!
The war-queen loved us when we sent the Helsinga to Odin's halls,
Keen bit the feathered arrow when our ships reached Iva's flood East Baltic ,
Gay was the music of sword on breast-plate and cleft shield.

We hewed with the brand!
Great was our courage when fierce Herraudr, 'mid his winged steeds, died.
No jarl more fearless sent his framing coursers o'er the main;
His stout heart drove him, fearless, by the sea-fowls' haunt.

We hewed with the brand!
The brand bit sore at Scarpa-reef Scarborough , the sword flew from its sheath,
Crimson the borders of our moon-shields when King Raven died;
Loud roared the spear on Ulla's field, as low lay Eystan the King.

We hewed with the brand!
O'er us was fated Herthiof to win a mighty victory,
There fell my son, bold Rognvald, before the host of spears.
His bow, unerring, shot in Sudorey Hebrides its last fatal bolt.

We hewed with the brand!
In Ireland King Marstan let not the she-wolf nor the eagle starve.
A sacrifice he made at Wetherford Waterford , for the steel-thorn issuing from its sheath,
Pierced to the heart of Ragnar, fearless son of mine.

We hewed with the brand!
South we played at war with three kings, the blood of the Irish dyed the sea,
Then stormed we to the sword-play at the river-mouth of Anglesey,
No kissing of a girl was it to fight as we fought there.

We hewed with the brand!
Little did I wot that at the hands of Ella my death should come!
Yet what boots it? None can withstand his fate and well is it
To quaff the mead in skull-boughs drinking horns in the great hall of Odin.

We hewed with the brand!
Before cold death does no brave man quail; no thought of fear have I.
Soon with the battle wake when Aslaug's sons their bitter blades unsheath,
Soon will they learn the manner of my death, stout hearts of their brave mother!

We hewed with the brand!
My life is well-nigh o'er; sharp is the pang that the serpent gives.
Goinn the Snake, nests deep in my heart. No more will my children rest;
Great wrath will be theirs at the undoing of their sire.

We hewed with the brand!
Full gladly do I go! See the Valkyrjar fresh from Odin's halls!
High-seated among heroes shall I quaff the yellow-mead.
The Aesir welcome me. Laughing gladly do I die!

The complete Old Norse skaldic poem "Krákumál" (Lay of Kráka), probably composed at the end of the 12th century on Iceland, consists of 29 stanzas.

In 1782, Rev. James Johnstone translated the above 13 stanzas. He was an eminent Scandinavian antiquary, and for some years chaplain to the English envoy extraordinary in Denmark.

Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnar 'Hairy-Breeches', Old Norse: Ragnarr Loðbrók) was a semi-legendary king of Sweden and Denmark who reigned sometime in the eighth or ninth centuries. As the "Ragnars saga loðbrókar" has it, he was a renowned Viking and dragon-killer. He died bravely, laughing in the face of death, in a snakepit in which his enemy Ælla of Northumbria had him thrown. His sons avenge him.

Note that Ragnar has a vision of entering Valhall even though he does *not* die in battle ! This is one of ca. five similar instances in written lore when a non-battle death still leaves the hero eligible for Valhall. These examples are usually ignored in modern heathen discussions about who goes or doesn´t go to Valhall...

"We hewed with the brand" = We fought with the sword.

Patriarchal Fantasies

Red alluring dress
Wearing a woman.
Dirty back:
Red versus black, -
Designers applauding.
I envy God
Not power, but the vision.
Quivering eyelashes will
Furbish the dirty feet
Smelling of Mother - - -
Let's get acquainted.
After all
Man's longing
Is measured by
Heels

- Red Mint, "Red Dress" (2014)

Consumed by Indifference...

I can love both fair and brown,
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays,
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays,
Her whom the country formed, and whom the town,
Her who believes, and her who tries,
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries;
I can love her, and her, and you, and you,
I can love any, so she be not true.

Will no other vice content you?
Will it not serve your turn to do as did your mothers?
Or have you all old vices spent, and now would find out others?
Or doth a fear that men are true torment you?
O we are not, be not you so;
Let me, and do you, twenty know.
Rob me, but bind me not, and let me go.
Must I, who came to travail thorough you,
Grow your fixed subject, because you are true?

Venus heard me sigh this song,
And by love's sweetest part, variety, she swore,
She heard not this till now; and that it should be so no more.
She went, examined, and returned ere long,
And said, Alas! some two or three
Poor heretics in love there be,
Which think to ’stablish dangerous constancy.
But I have told them, Since you will be true,
You shall be true to them who are false to you.

- John Donne, "The Indifferent"

Gaps in the Order of Being

- Transcript

“Love desires personality; therefore love desires division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that God has broken the universe into little pieces. […] This is the intellectual abyss between Buddhism and Christianity; what for the Buddhist (or Theosophist) personality is the fall of man, for the Christian is the purpose of God, the whole point of his cosmic idea. The world-soul of the Theosophists [or Buddhist] asks man to love it only in order that man may throw himself into it. But the divine center of Christianity actually threw man out of it in order that he might love it. […] All modern philosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is a sword which separates and sets free. No other philosophy makes God actually rejoice in the separation of the universe into different living souls.”

G.K. Chesterton, "Orthodoxy"

Prosopopea

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

- William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 129"

Paroikia's

παροικία, παροικίας, ἡ (παροικέω, which see), a Biblical and ecclesiastical word a dwelling near or with one; hence, a sojourning, dwelling in a strange land: properly, Acts 13:17 (2 Esdr. 8:35; Psalm 119:5 (); Wis. 19:10; Prol. of Sir. 21; cf. Fritzsche on Judith 5:9). Metaphorically, the life of man here on earth, likened to a sojourning: 1 Peter 1:17 (Genesis 47:9); see παρεπίδημος (and references under παροικέω).

Thayer's Greek Lexicon

Despite the prevailing mood of constricted parochialism that pervades the Christian faith and the commonly presumed vision of the Church as a world within the world, an enclave much like a gated community, the very notion of "parish" - given its Greek etymology of "paroikia" - was to begin with meant to refer to a world as the place where you're kept from forget(ting) you're not here to stay, but (moreover, immediately Boutin adds) on a journey.

- Gabriel Vahanian, "Theopoetics of the World"