March 31, 2012

This is the cobalt color of morning, just before sunrise when you can just barely make out the faint shadow of the trees.  That color pierces my heart and I am not sure why, it just does.  There is one lone bird out there this morning, and it sounds like a duck quacking.  We used to have ducks in the neighborhood, the people on the other corner of Youpon, whose backyard faces the ditch, have a big pond with tiny little hills around it.  They built it for their grandchildren I think, they have ATVs and in the summer come most weekends to ride around and around.  The ducks that inhabited the pond were Muscovy ducks, really ugly ducks that were never going to grow up to be swans, black and white splotched with red wrinkly knobs at the base of their beaks.  But after Ike they disappeared and there have been no ducks now for years.  There used to be someone in the area with a rooster too, but I have not heard the rooster in a LONG time.  Maybe he left with the ducks, but the bird out there sure sounds like it's quacking, but much quieter than a real duck.

Today is Matthew's birthday.  The middle child and last in the month for his birthday.  Born the Monday after Easter, in a yellow tile delivery room with the early spring sun flooding in, born at the Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia.  I wanted to name him Morgan, meaning born by the sea, but his dad said that was the name of a horse, so we named him Matthew.  When he joined the SCA, society for creative anachronism. he needed a society name and chose Ragnar, because of his interest in Vikings, and now in Oklahoma, no one calls him Matthew and they think it strange when we do.  All his friends call him Ragnar, a name of his own choosing, and very like him.  He's always one to go his own way and do his own thing.  One of those people who is an individual, who will stick up for his beliefs, and his choices.  It took me several years to realize that he was never lost at the Renaissance Faire when we went every year, he was just enjoying it his own way, and after awhile I stopped worrying about it.  That's one of the things I admire about him, after you get over being annoyed about not being able to have much influence, you admire that he will choose his own way and take the consequences.  Easy going, almost to a fault, nothing would ever get done in Matthew's life if it were not for the last minute, but that last minute usually comes and things get done, most of the time.  As babies the two brothers were polar opposites, in almost every way, in coloring, in temperament, in approach to the world, yet they shared a lot as well.   I was glad to have Matthew between the other two, he was . . . restful and easy, at least as a baby <smile>.  He didn't go at the world with such . . . energy, he was more content with whatever came his way.  He had the art of meditation down from the start <smile>.

For Matthew, a translation of part of the long poem Havamal, the portion where Odin finds the runes, the runes that guided the Vikings and still do.

Hung I was    on the windswept tree;

Nine full nights I hung,

Pierced by a spear,    a pledge to the god,

To Odin, myself to myself,

On that tree which none    can know the source

From whence its root has run.

None gave me bread,    none brought a horn.

Then low to earth I looked.

I caught up the runes,    roaring I took them,

And fainting, back I fell.

                                                     Havamal

                                                     translation by Jack Hart 

The runes are sort of like a meditation, a symbol to suggest something you might need to think about, a way of getting in touch with what is going on in your life.  Lots of people use them to sort out problems and connect with the spiritual side of life, to be reminded of blessings, and grace, work that needs to be done.  Each person who uses the runes has their own reason for doing so, as each person who prays makes the prayer their own.

Happy Birthday, Ragnar! <grin>