18 years ago today.

Hatred is your name, O beast

Who pursues the quick-moving light in the night

Hatred drives you forth to consume

That which you could never control

Which brings hope and guidance to those below

Romance and magic, and tides, and life

You know you could never match the great honor

That Mani pays to his sister Sunna

He brings Her light to where She can not fare

You live only to slay Him for it

Hatred is all that you are, O beast

Slavering fangs at the heels of the Moon-god

An endless shadow to His guiding light

The thought floods your veins like the sweetest mead

All your seething envy could end this day

If you finally take the Moon-god’s life!

Obsessed with the chase, you near your prize

With a furious leap, you seize the rider

And those below watch in awe and fear

As Mani’s blood fills the sky

Hatred is your downfall, O beast

Now as the hot wolf-blood takes you

Into pride and a lust for destruction

Beserk rage and fury your only love,

Your howling sends ice down spines

Revel in the pain of your vanquished prey

Claim credit for all of His agony

Bay with insensate joy at your triumph

And bellow in bestial rage at the Gods,

That Ragnarok is soon come!

Hatred is all you have left, O beast

For you should have been using your mighty jaws

For something other than howling!

The ways of hatred are foolish at best

Love, light and truth long outlast the unworthy

Cool was His smile and unheard were His steps

As you robbed yourself of the killing blow,

For while you exulted in your hateful victory

The hard-won prize has escaped!

Wise, silent Mani has slipped away

And the Norns shall weave for another day…  

On January 1st, 1992, my father suffered a pulmonary embolism at about 6 in the morning. 98% of the people this happens to die instantly. Essentially it is your aorta rupturing.

My father hung on, and my entire family were in the hall outside surgery while they tried to save him. Although none of us could hear anything, I knew when they were applying the paddles as if I was in the room with them, and I sensed my father dying on the table. His

soul (which I perceived as a ball of golden light) shot up toward the sky and he turned to say goodbye.

My family sitting with me out in the hallway saw me stand up, burst into tears and scream “NO!!!!”  I reached up toward the sky with my left hand and pulled down. I am not sure if I was doing it in this world (I will have to ask the rest of my family I guess), but I was

definitely doing it in the otherworld. I pulled his soul back down to earth. It was like trying to catch a cannonball. I hurt myself somehow doing it, but I did it. I was telling him that it wasn’t his time, and that his family loved him and needed him. I did not know it at the time but this was a classic example of the shamanic task of psychopomping.

Later when he was conscious, my mother asked my father if he had seen anything. He didn’t want to talk about it, and for several months after that he looked at me like he was scared shitless of me. He couldn’t look me in the eye.

Less than a week later I had a dream that I was on the number 7 subway heading west toward the city.  There is a long stretch between the Vernon Jackson Avenue and Grand Central stations because the train has to cross the river between Queens and Manhattan. During this part of the trip, three guys came in and tried to hold up the people in the

subway car. They were harassing an old lady who was getting really scared and I got very pissed off. I went beserk and attacked the robbers. The first one I disabled by kneecapping him and then hitting him in the face. The second, who had a gun, tried to shoot me but I moved the body of the first guy between us so that instead he shot his

buddy. The first guy fell to the floor and I got the second guy with a blow to the solar plexus followed by a kick to the head. He went down, out cold and possibly dead.

Then I went after the third guy, who also had a gun and who had had more time to get ready to deal with me. He shot me, first in the shoulder and then several times in the chest, but not before I put a hurt on him too. I died with my hands closing tightly around his throat in a beserk rage, I felt the impact of the shots but was so infuriated that I didn’t feel the pain from them.

While this was happening the train pulled into Grand Central and a “black man” – he looked like he was entirely made of a starry night sky – caught my falling body in his arms as the train doors opened and took me to Tir Na Nog. I have been told by Celtic types that this was probably Arawn.

Tir Na Nog was beautiful. There is actually an earthly place that it reminded me of. The sunlight filtered down through the golden trees and the Sidhe (or Liosalfar) were all sitting around partying. They told me that since I had died a hero’s death I had earned my place there. I thanked them but said I was very unhappy because my father is a Christian and I wanted to be able to see him but he didn’t believe in this place. The elves all began laughing their asses off, they found this absolutely hysterical. They then explained to me that “Heaven is all one place” and moving between the different variations thereof is no more difficult than traveling from New York to New Jersey.

This was my introduction to shamanism.

My father is still alive.

So am I.

I am aware that there are people this displeases. Dispute it at your peril.