Ride of the Valkeries....

It started with a door. “Hmmm. No sigil.” Usually there is a sigil to trace with my finger. None here. She reached out her hand and pushed open the door. There is no knob to turn, just a gentle nudge and it swung open. There wasn't an enveloping light as normal either. “Peculiar.”

Stepping through the door, she takes in the scene on the other side. Desolation. Gray. Stormy. Hot. The pungent smell of sulfur was strong. She stood back 20 feet from the edge of a canyon. The smell comes from the canyon and she knows what the red glow is before she even steps forward to look. Lava. A river of lava. She experiences deja vue and knows she's been here at some point in time.

The earth she stands on is dusty and gray. The top soil is buffed around by the hot wind that whipped through in short bursts. The sky is gray too – overcast. At closer examination the clouds are thick, thunderheads. They flash now and then a green and yellow color. She knows that there is lightening streaking up into the sky. Occasionally she can see a bolt hit the dead, colorless earth here and there. There is no vegetation, just starkness all around.

She's a bit perplexed. She'd stepped out this night looking for 1) someone to relay a message to her that she needs to know at this time in her walk, or 2) someone to be a guide for her chaos magick. And she arrived here? If nothing else, she's learned that you learn more if you go with the flow here, so she put her lush island from her mind and decided to explore. She was drug here for some reason.

The Traveler's arms and legs elongated. She grew a snout and tail. Two leather wings sprang from her back. “Ah,” She thinks, it's been awhile. The Traveler flexes her wings in a stir of hot wind. It has been awhile since she has taken the Lugh Dae form. Her dragon form leaped into the air with a twitch of her tail and powerful beating of her wings.

Up. Up. Out of the hot nothingness. Through the clouds that smell of odd gases. She breaks through to a beautiful sight. Blue sky. Clean, fresh air. Looking down she can still see lightening streaking up from the grayness below. To her right a peak boldly emerges from the clouds to rise strong and proud. This mountain looked to be lacking vegetation too. However, flying closer, she can see that there is new birth on the peak. Small seedlings and green ground cover is starting to make a come back. A single yellow flower makes an appearance. A joyous color amidst the depressing gray.

She lands on a well worn path on the side of the peak. It's narrow and carved into the side of the mountain. Not what one would call easy to access or comfortable, for that matter. Her human form walked up a short distance up the path. She walked up to a large boulder in the center of the path and felt she should wait and go no further. The Traveler followed her instincts and sat to wait....sat to wait and see what would happen.

The constant whoosh of wind was all she could hear. The wind was cooler up here, but the rock was warm. A motion caught her eye. Gray movement. Why is all gray here? A human figure. Gray travel robe. Gray, floppy hat. Walking staff. Gray beard. Gray hair. Eye Patch? Realization made her hair stand on end. The caw of a raven (though not seen) confirmed. Her knees got weak. Odin.

“Child. You know me?” He inquired in a low soft voice.

“Yes. I've met and worked with you before on the runes.” On a previous journey she had the honor of meeting and gaining wisdom from not only Odin, but the Norns as well for nearly every rune meditated on. At that time she met Odin in a mountain. He gave council to her as he sat on his throne of all seeing.

“Ah,” He confirms a memory and nods his head. “Yes.”

“I've worked with you much. Would you be considered my patron God?” For a response she was given a picture of text that she once read '….to know Odin, but not to worship him...'. The landscape changed. The sky darkened to night and the clouds played across the face of a large full moon. A large tree stood by itself in a meadow of lush grass. Robed people with torches stood back. There was a village behind us. The Traveler could faintly hear the robed people chanting. The only man (priest she guessed) standing by the tree was also speaking, but understand them she could not. This was odd....while out of her soft body, she could understand every language she'd come across.

The priest stepped back from the tree and the Traveler could see and immediately understood the scene. A man was stripped of clothes and hanging upside down, pinned to the tree truck by a spear. A sacrifice. Odin too sacrificed himself in this same manner to learn the secrets of the Runes. This was a sacrifice to Odin on a full moon.

She put forth the reason for travel this night. Chaos Magick help and/or anything that I should know at this time in my walk of life.“Believe,” was his answer. “You must believe that you truly believe.”

“I believe in many things,” she thinks.

“What you need to believe in is you. All is possible if you just believe that you can.” He gave a picture of the Traveler at work back in her soft body and the feelings of uncertainty and fear. He also gave pictures of her with the runes, tarot, and preforming spells and rituals.

“In all things....” she verbalized the pictures. She gave a picture of herself far from home, picking up a statue of Minerva. Then another picture of her at home and the statue not on her alter, but on her living room end table. Then a feeling of disappointment and the uncertainty of a patron god or goddess and years of searching for thus. She showed herself meeting a three phase goddess and the resulting research of that travel. She let him know again her disconnection and disappointment.

“Learn to know the difference from self and other power,” was the only answer to her inquiry. Of course she didn't think she would get an answer, after all it is her life and she had to discover it herself. Having him answer that kind of question was like cheating on a math exam. Odin snapped her out of her revere with “Come.”

Back at the narrow path of the gray peak, a strong smell of brimstone waft about. A smoldering, smoking horse appeared and perched on it's magnificent back was a beautiful warrior woman. Her armor gleamed and her helmet sported wings. A Valkyrie! Oh what a good trip this was!

A hand out was the only invitation that the Traveler needed. Within a second she was mounted be hind the Valkyrie and the fiery stallion was running on the wind. They flew through the sky from place to place. A battle field from ages old. Warriors clambered against each other with clangs of metal weapons and shield and armor. The sticky sweet smell of blood filled the air. I watched as the Valkyrie took the hand of a man and pulled him up. In the blink of an eye, the scene changed.

A dessert. Sand and heat. Turban men stood with guns. In front of him a pale man on his knees, hands behind his head, blank stare. This pale man was offered a hand as well and she watched and the Valkyrie once again pulled a man up.

French arms stood in line guns bayoneted and pointed to one person. This woman was blindfolded and tied to a post. The commander was giving the kill command when the Valkyrie offered her a hand.

This happened time and time again. A woman burning at a steak. A Christan in a Roman cathedral tortured in a burning metal chair. A man to be beheaded. A man in a violent car accident. A man to be hanged. From all ages all over the world, the Valkyrie and the Traveler visited the recently dead and gave them a hand up. After each and every one the Valkyrie knelled and touched the ground by the dead body.

“You are not saving these people. You are a pyschopomp,” the Traveler spoke.

A nod of confirmation and a positive feeling was her only answer.

“Do the humans have a name for you?” With this statement was sent a picture of something other than Valkyrie.

“Alsea Ravenfoot.” She gave the Traveler a picture of the ground that she touched by each of her collections. A Raven's foot mark was left. “The mark I leave behind when helping a soul.”

“You are a pyschopomp that concentrates on violent deaths. If a family member or other doesn't help that soul you more inclined to do so?” The Traveler inquired, intrigued.

“Only those that deserve,” was her answer. Pictures - Martyrdom and heroism. Feeling - Something to put them apart from the rest.  With that the Valkyrie deposited the Traveler back to her rest.