Yesterday was a day of getting things done, not just for me but Tara too. It was also a day of two birds and a wounded dog.
Firstly I got up early cleared an area in the garage and put together the pottery studio. I sat down and made the pendants that would contain my Mother's ashes. Before I started each ceramic piece I asked the runes for a message from her to each individual member of the family and that is the rune I used in the design. Although this task had tears and sadness it also gave me joy to feel my Mum around me once more.
As I went back upstairs I heard the call of the eagle, and there he was sitting proudly in the tree surveying his domain. This is the biggest Bald Eagle in the area and was the the creature that came to check us out as we viewed the property. A feeling that all would be well accompanied his presence.
Next I walked Boo the the sacred tree but today she was rushing around even more frantic than ever. She leaped over a bank and disappeared over the side, moments later I heard a yelp and whimpering. Not looking where she was going,  the silly dog had landed in something sharp and split up between her toes. There was a fair amount of blood, I tried to look closer but as I now have "Old Git eyesight" that was useless, so I carried her home to Tara. ( What a bloody lump)
As we live in the middle of nowhere, it is a good job Tara is great home veterinary and she cleaned the wound and sprayed it with antibiotic and antiseptic sprays, bandaged it up and gave Boo a trimodal to clam her down. She looked a sad sight hobbling around the house on three legs. ( Boo not Tara that is)
The afternoon Sun shone, it felt warm on my skin as I stood on the back porch. Tara had recently brought a humming bird feeder to hang above the back window. I had never been drawn to this tiny creatures ,as the don't exist in the UK I didn't really understand their energy, that was until yesterday.
A tiny iridescent, turquoise blue bird flew right up to my face, its red breast flashed before my eyes, it buzzed and just hovered in front of me. This is truly a creature of the Fae, I was enchanted, this little birds energy had filled my with joy and I was smiling from ear to ear.
I walked back in the house, bumping into Tara.
"Those humming birds are amazing, breathtakingly colorful"
" I told you." My wife replied.

It was good to see they blue skies return after being stuck in the thick grey heaviness that has been suffocating nearly everyone I know, but today the sun shone. My morning was greeted by a falcon sitting in the tree over looking the bay, who spied in the wet grassland searching for his next meal. I did take a pic but he actually only looks like a pin prick in a distant tree.
I studied though our bird spotting books that we had been gifted at Xmas. This hobby in the UK is called being a twitcher, here in the states is a bit too much like being a tweeker which is a  completely different hobby. Anyway after close examination, this bird was no mere falcon, it was a Merlin.
On my shamanic path, my encounters with the spirit of Merlin  have always taken me to peek over the eadge and into insanity. I guess that is what that last two weeks have been and now back from the abyss I can just sit and see the beauty in this Merlin and thank him for his masters mesage. We must remember that our visions and spirit messages give us restbite from the sometimes mundayity of Midgard but it is retreating back to Midgard that gives us, a belonging and grounding when our spirit work becomes too intense.

I haven't blogged for a while,"strange things have been afoot". Although they definately have not calmed down, I feel more at peace with what is going on and my role in the events as they unfold. It is just over a month since I buried my Mother and last night she appeared to me in a dream.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, my parents and my siblings, we were planning a trip but I said "Mum can't go she is dead."
" Of course I can , I can go where ever I want. It's not that different you know. Death isn't the other side of the universe, it's right next to you. Even though I am dead I exist with life all around me and even though you are all still alive you exist with death all around you. The universe is never still it is in a continuios flux of decay and rebirth." She lit a cigarette and carried on just being Mum.
My mother , even though a very intelligent woman, never indulged me with conversations on theology. At the near end, she allowed me to use my shamanic teachings to take her on a journey to the other side, she got to meet the spirit who would guide her over (one of her dearest friends) and she rode the buffalo to the hall of Freyja where all her ancestors and family prepared a great party in her honor.
I thank you mum for the precious gift of allowing me to show you who I am.
May the Gods bless you.

What a day! This morning I was trying to plug in my kindle so it could charge, my glasses slid down my nose so anything out side the view of the lenses was a foggy haze. THONK! I managed to stick myself in the forehead on the antlers of my elk skull. It was so bad I saw stars, Tara came and bathed it, then asked me to take the dogs out. After the great effort on behalf of a wounded man I got outside with Rhemmy and Boo.
Boo was completely on one, running around like a nutter and charged straight into me and Rhemmy sending him flying. He was yelping in pain so I rushed him inside to Tara. As she checked him over he bit her, drawing blood. That was it,I had to take Boo for a walk to burn off her puppy power. She pulled like crazy, so I let her off, once again she could sense the elk and chased half a dozen of them out of a thicket where they were resting up for the day. They took off, she took off, I went home.
"Where's Boo?" Tara asked
"Don't know don't care, I've got a head ache.
She turned up about twenty minutes later and spent the rest of the day in the dog house.
Everything, everything! we did went wrong, I mean everything. By the end of the day we just decided to go foraging for shell fish on the beach. Finally things were going good, Butter clams and oysters, a meal fit for a king. I had to rush to get home as I had a class. Then none of my students turned up, so the class was cancelled.
So I then went about shucking the oysters. First one went perfect, lemon juice, cocktail sauce and straight down my neck, the day was looking up. Next one, slip with the knife and nearly take the top of my finger off. Time to call it a day... Cup of tea and chocolate biscuits and sit on the couch and don't move, maybe we will be safe.
Two pictures are posted one of a lovely plate of oysters, take note not yet shucked and the second is of a sauce I saw for sale in a local store, that will make anyone from the UK chuckle.

Especially good on sausages!

The calm after the storm. I woke to the mists rolling across the bay and to find that three different mud-slides had been cleared in the night and that part of the road had subsided leaving a fairly narrow track to squeeze the car through. No matter we were free after one day of being marooned (hardly Robinson Crusoe). So off to Astoria we set to pick up supplies and parcels. This time making sure we have enough rations to last a week or so. If the road goes completely we are going nowhere.

After our errands we returned home, Tara sorted out the groceries and I took the dog to my special place. I came across the prettiest deer I have ever seen, brownish grey with black ears and white markings around her eyes and muzzle, she stopped and we shared a moment. Luckily Boo was on her lead so her couldn't chase her. I just stood and watched as she glided back into the forest.
At my holy place I left Rowan berries, burnt mugwort to honor my ancestors and smudged with sweet grass to give respects to the native spirits that dwelt there. I chanted my prayers to Odin and asked if it was OK to take a pic so I could show others the magic of this sacred tree, to me it is Yggdral, the gateway to everything.

Well finally got everything sorted out, a class pretty much every day of the week and picking up my Verizon jet-pack to boost my internet today. This is what I have woken up to, A mudslide right across our road. There is still another two and a half miles of forest road until we get to the main highway.
Highway 101 has two major mudslides in our area and it under water with flooding at the the junction where it meets highway 4 (That is the road I need to take to get into Astoria) both roads are closed for the foreseeable future. I caledl the DOT but I dont think our mudslide comes in the top thirty so we may be home for some time.
I pray that I do not have to cancel any classes but that is in the hands of the gods, who must be laughing at me right now. The message is simple 'JUST BE" there is nothing I can do about anything mother nature is putting things in perspective.

New Year's Day. Ever since childhood I have always got up early on this date, no matter what time I went to bed. To me the world is a clean slate, fresh and perfect. I have only been back in the US since late on the 27th but unbelievable shamanic shifts have taken place.
I was led to the Holy tree by the Elk and since then I cannot not go there. It has become the sacred location where I commune with the forest beings. When I am there a great peace comes over me, a knowing that I need to be still to hear their voices. A place to honor my ancestors, the land-wights and the Native energies the flood out of the rocks, the trees and soil.
Some of you who read my posts may not understand the world of Elves, Faeries and Goblins but these are the woodland folk that exist in the half-light and the best time to experience them is at dawn and dusk. My Shamanic brother in England was talking about visions from Gnomes, I have to admit to him that I had never experienced them. Then two of my mystical sisters in the US told me that I must meet with them, I thought this a strange coincidence.
Then I thought of the strange Faerie beings that came in an energetic wave, whilst sitting in a ring of cedar trees, to give me comfort when my Mother had passed. Well know I know what the Gnomes are and there connection to me and the wisdom of their plant medicine. To now know what I must ingest to find the answers to my quest. This will lead me into direct communication with the forest gods.
Because I am a white-skinned European this sounds nuts but to any other indigenous peoples of the Earth it is a sacred pathway to enlightenment.
We of Western European descend must remember that we also have  tribal customs that date back to the beginnings of time. When we understood the language of the plants, the trees, the animals, even of rock beings and that same understanding still remains in our core, you just have to search.