What are your favorite myths, legends or stories? The ones that are not common knowledge, that you would not necessarily find in print. always looking to share materials and to grow knowledge. The things to share while sitting around the campfire with a few good friends.

Have one send it to me via e-mail or post it in a comment. My e-mail address is kevin@unpluggedpagan.com

I came across this video recently and found it interesting. It actually popped up in my facecrack feed. It has to do with building a team and according to the person in the video it is part of the criterion seal team 6 uses to choose its members. I do not know where I rank in the grand scheme of things in relation to this scale I just think it is neat.

https://youtu.be/FPlT04WiO8k

I would like to take the opportunity to talk about Raven Black an amazing artist I met years ago at Magik Morn near Kawartha Lakes Ontario . I was drawn to the sound of her voice, raw but real. I have had opportunity to provide drum accompaniment while she performed at Stoneheart out in Coehill Ontario.

This is the bio taken from her ReverbNation account. I would encourage you to take a listen to her album there. Link to listen is at the bottom.

“Raven Black has been playing and composing music since 2008
She’s previously played in many cover bands but is a force to be reckoned with. In 2003 she moved to London ontario and found a kindred spirit Shawn Lint his attitude and haunting Melodic sound gives a whole lot of layers that open each song like a drug we leave you wanting more. Both of them continues to play intensely with love for music. Her influences are folk,country rock and blues inspired. She plays with all of her body and soul! She debuted her self-titled independent CD called Raven Black as an she has sold over 6000 copies!. just by word of I mouth!”

Really this is a post about nothing.

I have been trying not to write for the last few days. I have been in a fuck it what the hell is the damn point, is it really benefiting me at all to do so. Work has been frustrating the hell out of me, I have been letting myself go, losing routines and just generally not taking care of myself. Is it the writing that is getting me in a funk or the lack of peopling. Is it, is it, is it. The lyrics of a song keep popping into my head

But I kept runnin’
For a soft place to fall
And I kept runnin’

ah that soft place to fall. that place where you feel accepted, where you can be you, where you are accepted for all your flaws. Does it really exist? or as the lyrics suggest

I was painting a picture
The picture was a painting of you and
For a moment I thought you were here
But then again, it wasn’t true, down

The picture, an Idea in your head that you so desperately want to be true. The soft place to fall, the picture you have in your head of that soft place where you can just let go, be you. hmmm. The home you want, the family, ah if life were that simple. The picture you paint is it really true?

And I was runnin’ far away
Would I run off the world someday?
Nobody knows
Nobody knows, and
I was dancing in the rain
I felt alive and I can’t complain

The illusion, I ran away to Neverland, I ran to that place where I was dancing in the rain, felt alive and really could not complain. BUT

I was listenin’ to the ocean
I saw a face in the sand
But when I picked it up
Then it vanished away from my hands, down

But then I started listening to that ocean, for a moment I saw that soft place but when I tried to grab hold of it it disappeared it vanished I tried to find it again but it was gone. The face the sand, the ocean. Neverland is an illusion. An Idea that does not stand up to the light and has no substance if you try to grab hold of it. It is a myth.

And all this time I have been lyin’
Oh, lyin’ in secret to myself
I’ve been putting sorrow on the farthest place on my shelf

Yes been lying to myself, I have put life on hold for a dream, put sorrows on the back burner, Neverland, that soft place to fall. hmmm. Neverland does not exist, it has no substance, its call is like that of the sirens of greek myth luring you to your death. The intangible lure of haunting somehow soothing melody that just draws you in and when you arrive it just sucks the life out of you.

No NeverLand is not real.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 25 1/2 hours awake time to sleep.





Really you thought that …… should know me better ….. oh wait that would take actual conversations.

Well 3 years ago I moved from “home”. I was burnt out, angry, hurt, and in shock after a friends suicide. I moved from what was home, quit my job, and lost a friend. An I apologize for being a bit ranty.

After moving I was for the lack of a better term ostracized, black balled call it what you will. I was no longer “home” staff. Told not to be on property without permission or pre-arrangement. Which was fine. I had no intention at that time of being there without some one covering my back. All I wanted to do at that time as move on with life, retrieve my property and keep on keeping on.

I believe leading up to moving out some of the few last things I did at there consisted of driving Gypsy’s truck back, and replacing the windows in it, and looking after the burning of his trailer for his memorial. I still have a few pieces of melted metal from that fire. I did not have opportunity to participate in any of the things surrounding his memorial week-end other than the fire. I was never introduced to his mother. I still do not even know what she looks like. And I suppose in a way it was that point I started feeling not part of community.

My friend Gypsy in his first few years coming to what I refrred to as home he started this thing. He had an Idea of giving a knife to people he thought were good eggs. These were not just any knives, they were Laguiole knives, sometimes referred to as shepherds knives. He had a concept of creating a clan called the shadow clan and the aforementioned members would receive one of these knives. It was kind of a secret thing for him no one was really supposed to have known about it. No one was really to know who was part of this group, unless you saw the knife. But word sort of got out. I inherited the last few remaining knives in the small chest he kept them in. During the week-end of his memorial on more knife was passed on to a good friend of his.

This chest now sits in my room. with one knife remaining. I am not sure what to do with it now. I have been tempted a few times to bury it with the last remaining knife, or possibly burn it. I have no desire to keep this clan growing. And have no strong connection to community especially after the events of this week-end.

This week-end marked the last (well not sure if it is the last) work weekend at my former home…. It was a secret work week-end. Yes secret work week-ends happen at there. Normally I get invited to these. This year no invite… and point blank was told not to show up on site. Well I guess I really should have figured that would occur.

Well lets hope you bled all the lines properly if not I would not want to be around when the water is turned back on.

I was finishing the last few sentences of the Ratatoskr myth and it donned on me how metaphoric it is to current situations. Careful who you find “annoying” and “insignificant” some people may seem to be for the little tasks they complete may seem little, but in their totality those tasks add up, and over time may be the stitches that hold the fabric together and cause it to come undone.