Tag: Gosforth Cross

Dear Don,

It’s weird, isn’t it… how driving a straight road is mind-numbing, boring and sends you to sleep on more levels than one, while walking the old straight tracks just frees the mind and lets it roam… Perhaps it is to do with walking the earth… the physical relationship between the physical body and the planetary body that makes the difference…

You may be on to something with ‘seeing essences’. Or maybe it is seeing from essence, rather than preconception… or both. We didn’t see anyone at all after James at Ilkley that night… that was part of the weirdness. We had switched off normality and must have been asleep within minutes of the encounter. We were not acting rationally at all.

I had a look for a reconstruction of the Loki Stone, and this was the best I could find… an old drawing, but it does bring out some of the details. Perhaps because the stone is still in such a good state of preservation, there doesn’t seem to be a better one out there.

Speaking of twins… which seem to be cropping up again a fair bit lately… There were a good few curious stones at Kirkby Stephen though, including the capital with the twin wolves/dogs and the human head with legs. They don’t seem to be either gorging or guzzling either. We never did get to the bottom of that one.

Mind you, if you want Loki and Odin as twins, you might have to be looking at polarities rather than the traditional mythical relationships, though the Prose Edda does mention both of them as the father of Valli and there is a verse that suggests kinship, when Loki says:

Do you remember, Odin, when in bygone days

we mixed our blood together?

You said you would never drink ale

unless it were brought to both of us.

…so there is definitely a brotherhood by choice, if they are ‘mixing blood’. I wonder what dreams Loki would have had upon the Tree? Instead of following the voluntary sacrifice made by Odin, he is bound and tortured beneath the dripping venom of the serpent. Do you remember that we saw the scene carved on the Gosforth Cross, where Sigyn comes to comfort him?

The road north seems to be calling us again 🙂

The dog, by the way, says that a holiday is definitely required for one who is constantly on guard duty against pigeons, flies and postmen.

As is cheese.

Love,

Wen x

***

Joining Don & Wen

Stuart France & Sue Vincent

Don and Wen, two friends living hundreds of miles apart embark, all unwittingly, upon a quest through the ancient and sacred landscape of Albion…

The two share a passion for these prehistoric sites, seeing that their potential has not been erased by time, making them as vital and relevant in today’s society as they always were.

Through Don and Wen’s correspondence, learn how to read the clues hiding within the landscape and in the symbols of faith left by our forefathers in the mediaeval churches, stone circles and ancient monuments.

This is the second book in the series, ‘Finding Don and Wen’, but can stand alone. The book may act as a guide to show the reader how to engage with the land in a meaningful way… and how that engagement opens you wide to life in all its glory.

Available for Kindle and in Paperback

via Amazon UK, Amazon.com and worldwide