Ghost Girl in Autumn

I recently started honoring and working with the Norse Pantheon, and the Aesir and Vanir have completely stripped away any notions I had of them. Once I saw only a warrior's aesthetic in their lore, but now I find how beautifully their tales are steeped in the knowledge that all are subject to Wyrd - a complicated mixture of fate brewed by the fires of social circumstance, ancestral contributions to the now, and personal action. Frigg, Sif, and Freya have been tremendously comforting to me during this stressful month during our move out our old home.

Odin has been helping my fires of creativity return, and Thor is teaching me how to better protect myself from those "giants" of the psyche that keep trying to knock down my own personal fortress.  I have not abandoned the gods who have brought me this far, but I have been craving new sources for spiritual growth. I do not want to be the sort of pagan who jumps from pantheon to pantheon and tries on new gods as though they were nothing more than clothes to be traded out from season to season,
but I feel it would be foolish to ignore the call of other deities, while remaining just as firm in my relationship with Artemis and Apollo as before.

During my path as a pagan it has always been a personal sign of strong communication between myself and deity when poetry seems to run like an unbroken thread - the words pour out, an act of devotion ensues, and something I hope I can call art results.

I asked Freyr what was the meaning of ghost girls

shrouding us beneath their skirts

The only response I received

was a heart wrapped in vintage ivy

and a thyrsus swollen in the autumn air

Pine cones opened, exultant

harvest has come,

but can the solace of night keep pace?

or are we tossing the leavings out

for ghost girl,

inviting her to smother us

with the humidity of moss?

Make your offerings, the norse god said,

for ghost girl keeps the howling winds at bay,

all in exchange for your witness

to her dance

watch her colors change

watch her roots spin, reach out

and find new ground in the incipient

you, an abbreviation of spring