The leaves have fallen, the dock is out of the river, and woodsmoke fills Leisureland as the dark half of the year starts in the woods. The River House is up on stilts, adding to the cold of the mornings as the frigid air surrounds all of it. Making a fire in the woodstove that lasts is a skill with which I am inexperienced, but I am getting better at it, and when I woke up this morning, the coals were still glowing from last night's fire. So I took a photo of the fire I started with no help and no lighters in a moment of primal celebration. * * I really like fire as a way of making offerings in a land where my gods and my ancestors did not originate. I love the land, and #Oregon is the home of my soul, but I remember that I am of European ancestry and that my roots are far from here. I do not pour alcohol on stones or on the ground, as many pagans do, but instead into a fire, where it will not be consumed by a land whose peoples were so often hurt by alcohol. If I am sacrificing food rather than consuming it as an offering, I burn it like it is part of a funeral pyre and the gods might receive it on the other side. * * Fire plays a huge role in my brand of Norse witchcraft. Witches were born of fire, as Gullveig was burned three times and was thrice reborn. It is said that Gullveig was the goddess Freyja in disguise, speared and burned for being a völva long before Odin hung from the tree. Witches died of fire, burned alive during witch hunts of the middle ages. Fire is a way to get to the gods, a natural force that never seems to lose its magic despite being explained by science. It is powerful and dangerous but also comforting and life-giving. - - - #oregonwitches #fire #witchesoforegon #woodstove #witchcraft #norsewitchcraft #leisurelandchronicles (at Deadwood, Oregon) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqIpLKDnhCe/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=14ntzs5jo2v5x
