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Several people important to heathens and pagans have died recently. Singer Andrea Meyer of Hagalaz Runedance was shot with a bow and arrow in Norway. I did not know her personally, so I don't know if she is now in the arms of Hel, or has been taken into Valhalla or Folkvang due to dying by weapon, but I think perhaps she went where poets go, which is wherever they want.

I placed a copy of a Hagalaz Runedance album on my main house altar yesterday, along with other mementos of the recent dead. It joined a fabric memento I had just placed there, which participants in the memorial for Phyllis Stewart of Ravenhold wore at her memorial service, which you can see in the photo that illustrates this post. I was on my way to that funeral when I had an inspiration experience.

Kveldulf Gundarsson aka Dr. Stephen Grundy aka Sigmundr Hawkonson has gone to stay with the ancestors. As reported on social media and on various news sites, he died suddenly a week ago.

In a public post, Kveldulf's wife Melodi has announced a worldwide public event, Lift Your Glass, for the evening of October 8th, 2021.  It's not an online meeting, there is nothing to join or post, one just raises a toast.

Rainbow Season is my kindred's end of summer ritual. Since summer is monsoon rain season the end of summer is rainbow season. We honor the mermaids in the summer and Heimdall at the end of summer. Heimdall was Tom Newman's patron. I don't know if we're going to keep doing that in future years but we're at least doing it one more time, this year, in honor of Tom. It's also 1 year since he died.

Heimdall is the Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge is the path that leads from Asgard to wherever the gods want to go. When the end of the rainbow touches down on Earth (Midgard) it only goes one place, to Asgard. The gods can bring dead people to Asgard via the Bridge if they wish to select specific humans for that honor.

This morning my heart was breaking for the working dogs left behind at the airport in Kabul. The news about them is confusing because updates from different times all jumble together on social media. Speculation, memes, and even fan fiction crosses my social feed as often as actual news. The fan fiction is about what happens to the dogs after they die. People are imagining it because they don't know for sure and writing gives them comfort. Since I now possess a godphone, after my experience with writing the Fireverse opened me to the gods, I can simply ask the gods. What is my godphone for, if not to ask such questions and get answers?

I asked Odin, "Are there new war dogs in Valhalla?"

Today is my celebration of being born into this world and in this life, there is only one thing we can be truly certain of, and that is death.

I was asked a favor that necessitated my asking the landwight who lives in my garden and protects all within its territory if it was OK. I rarely speak in words with the landwight. My relationship with the land spirit predates my developing a godphone, so when I do speak with the landvaette of this place, I'm used to making statements and not receiving a reply in words. This time I got a reply, though.

A friend messaged me on fb that her daughter's pet snake had died. They were planning to move to a house but had not done so yet, and they asked me if they could bury the snake in my yard temporarily and then move it later. Before I could reply I had to ask the landwight. Up until then, everything buried here had lived here. The animals buried in this land had already been part of this land and the landwight's territory. I asked the landwight with nearly the same wording that I had been asked, which emphasized that this was to be temporary. The landwight agreed.

A lot has changed over the past year. Obviously, many of the changes are not of a religious nature, but since this is my heathen path blog I'm focusing on the spiritual changes. My mom died in February. That was just before the Covid restrictions started. I was able to hold a normal, traditional wake for her with family who had flown in from out of town and many of her local friends, including the folk dancers and some members of her bridge club. I handled it. It was hard but I handled it. Then I was alone. The lockdowns started and I was alone. And then there was Tom. My companion Tom Newman died in September. More about that in a moment.

I've already blogged a lot about the experiences I've had since mom passed on.