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Composing poetry in the style of ancient heathen literature follows a few basic rules which are unlike the rules of composing modern rhymed poetry or free verse. One does not have to compose in the ancient style to use poetry in a heathen context, of course. One could write galdr (spells) and poems for sumbel (toasts) and other uses of poetry in any style one wishes and have them be just as good and just as effective. But if you want to write in modern English in the manner of the ancient heathens, here are the basic rules.

A song or poetry for a spell doesn't have to be great poetry or a great tune. The photo here is of a little song spell I made up one day. It goes "Wind, wind, wind, blow away my troubles. Make life smooth, without any nubbles." It's not objectively a great poem, and probably only fiber artists like me even have a sensory reference for what a nubble is. (It's the individual thing that, in a group, makes a fabric nubbly.) I wouldn't send it to a poetry anthology for publication, because it's just not very good as art. But it's as functional as any of the good poems I've written. I wrote it down mainly because I enjoy writing in my personal calligraphy font and at the time I had an art project to fill a blank book with such writing.

The song was something I created improvisationally. The strong desert wind suggested the idea, since it does tend to actually blow things away, including things it previously blew in, such as clouds and leaves. If I was composing poetry for people to read as art, I would have taken the time to find a better rhyme, and make it longer. If I was composing for ritual, I might keep it short if I was going to teach it to other people as a chant, but I'd certainly find a better rhyme if I could. If I couldn't find a better rhyme for troubles I'd change troubles for some other word. Not because that would make better magic but because it would make a nicer experience for the participants and observers. But as a song for magic, just for my personal use, it's fine the way it is.

Stolen Heart's Shadow

Glimpsed it just there in the small stream of sun

Ic seah wrætlice     wuhte feower
samed siþian     swearte · wæran lastas
swaþu swiþe blacu     swift wæs on fore
fulgum framra     fleotgan lyfte
deaf under yþe     dreag unstille
winnende wiga     se him wægas tæcneþ
ofer fæted gold     feower eallū

The riddles of the Exeter Book give us oblique snapshots of everyday life for the monks in the Middle Ages. You can easily imagine the scribes fixing on something within site and coming up with a poetic and misleading description where metaphor can throw a reader off the track. But the metaphors reveal power, too. Riddle 40 (51 in the Krapp-Dobbie edition) refers to one of the ubiquitous items in their lives: the pen or quill.

Bullying is a terrible thing.  I was bullied as a child. I was an odd duck of a kid who didn't always know how to behave in public because I grew up with an emotionally-distant father and a mother with untreated bipolar disorder who couldn't get the medical establishment to help her. Besides that, I was a clever kid who was really book-smart and terrible at coordinated sports. It was a classic nerd situation, and my peers made me suffer terribly for it.

It is almost a year after the initial conversation that sparked the crazy idea to write a collection of women's stories and call it "My Wandering Uterus" (for more details on that journey, please reference Byron Ballard's blog here: http://www.myvillagewitch.com/my-wandering-uterus/)

As I'm putting together a presentation on the history of the theory of trauma, the irony of this is not lost on me. Men like Jean Martin Charcot and Pierre Janet were some of the first men in their field to turn the tide against the asinine diagnosis of hysteria; recognizing that the manifestation of trauma based symptoms were not physiological in nature, but psychological, and not limited to the uterus. The article that inspired this conversation can be read here: https://lithub.com/hysteria-witches-and-the-wandering-uterus-a-brief-history/

I am writing again (obviously). But the simple act of sitting down and letting my fingers dance across the keyboard took months of struggle. Last year I would panic at the mere thought of writing. I thought I’d never publish another word, ever again.

Writing isn’t something I can do casually. Some writers can kick back and type out page after page in a single afternoon, but I’m not like that. For me, writing is a gut-wrenching, soul-baring practice. I cannot write without reaching deep inside of me. Often I end up encountering aspects of myself from which I would rather hide. Writing peels away my defenses and confronts me with the secrets I keep from myself.