Devotional Work

We have been talking about prayer beads.

A long time back, Freyr specified the number of beads he wanted me to use, and I found stones that would be ideal, and have generally only been waiting for a time when I could afford to purchase the materials and assemble it.

I have been interested in making prayer beads for other people for a long time, but have similarly been restricted by finances. It’s also occurred to me that many people who buy prayer beads have absolutely no idea what to do with them or how to use them, so it might be good to write prayers, adorations, or other devotions to gods and spirits I may make sets for in the future, so that I will have them on hand.

In addition to needing to work out the prayers for my own set.

I would like to write a much longer post about prayer, but recovery from the car accident is slow, and I am feeling very stressed and very thin.

Today while I was resting, I worked with the spirits of the trees living on this section of land and the spirits of the land itself — many of which were not clearly defined entities who were completely separated into something easily understandable. I felt myself sinking deep into the ground and felt the earth around me, and I knew that I had been guilty of being prideful and hubristic without realizing it, without having realized I’d created some sort of chain of being and placed myself on it above other things — that I was, in truth, the same as the microbes in the soil and served a similar purpose.

Healing the land and healing myself are likely connected. As are all of these meditative thoughts about devotion and prayer and walking through a land to bless it.

Tabulating

it is a little ironic, a little amusing, that what caused the extremely hideous bruising and panoply of burst blood vessels on my chest was freyr’s antler pendant. the tine comes off of a rounded triangle of antler about an inch long, that has been drilled top to bottom and strung horizontally, so the tine hangs down. one of the rounded triangle edges happens to face my chest.

it is possible that i had trapped the pendant there when i put on my seatbelt.

i have bruising that’s been developing with increasing tenderness in my abdomen. it isn’t really where my seatbelt goes, so i am thinking that because i had my cane in the front with me, it was probably driven into my stomach by the airbag. there was nothing in my backpack, which was also up front, that should’ve conceivably been able to harm me.

i went to sleep yesterday with our wedding cord wound many times around my waist – the usually unwieldy length of it suddenly showing its reasoning.

i have been able to put my antler back on. i’ve needed to moisturize the bad scrapes on my neck. i haven’t tried putting on the slightly-bigger-than-a-choker necklace i also wear, but wrapped it around my wrist a couple of times.

i don’t doubt that our gods saved our lives and kept us from even worse injury.

the heart is mainly in the center of the chest, not off to the left like everyone believes it is.

i feel like, and perhaps it’s silly but i don’t particularly care, he shoved me back into my seat to protect me.

Car accident

We were in a car accident yesterday morning at 5am, when V was taking me to the Amtrak station. The brakes didn’t engage at a stoplight, and there was a lot of slush on the ground, so we went straight into the intersection and into the passenger side of a massive truck. The car is destroyed.

I have severe bruising on my left pectoral area, enough to make it feel like a small breast, and scrapes across my chest and into the side of my neck from the seatbelt, as well as some whiplash, and bruising on my stomach, just above my waist. V has a badly bruised knee and some mild bruising from his seatbelt, but he seems to be in less physical pain than I am, for which I am grateful.

The other driver was fine and his truck was completely drivable, but incredibly unpleasant, screaming obscenities at us and so on while I was trying to call 911. The police completely blame V and gave him a ticket for “unreasonable speed” (had had been going under the speed limit on the entire road), and one for running a red light. If his insurance company can find out if something was wrong with the brakes, because they had made a loud crunch when engaged several stoplights back, I don’t know if it will help at all. His father is giving the information to his lawyer and V’s insurance company is going to look at the car, because the place it was towed to will not release it without V there in person. I guess if Progressive wanted to pick him up and take him home, he could go sign it over to them, or whatever, but we have no vehicle and he couldn’t drive even if he did, because his right knee needs to be stabilized.

He has an appointment later today with an orthopedist.

I would like to ask for as much healing and prayers as you can spare, and the same toward resolving the accident and insurance without him having a lot of points taken off his license or large fines.