Literature

“Writing Erotica” – Freya’s Chambers – Sensual Art

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Frigg and Freya’s Day!

Disclaimer:  The topics covered in Freya’s Chambers include serious discussions of sex, sexuality and related issues.  If it isn’t your thing; you can move along, otherwise enjoy and feel free to discuss.  Given the nature of some subjects be prepared for nude images as there may be some.  I avoid genitalia as a general rule but is not always possible.

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Discussion:

I haven’t really addressed the subject of sensual literature so far in Freya’s Chamber’s so here goes.  I am not a fan of romance novels as the plot seems pretty much the same.  The only innovation I have seen is not it is not always exclusively boy meets girl.  They=, meet, a problem arises, the overcome problem while falling in love, they confess love and curtain.  The sex scene that would follow such stories is far more interesting because the romance to me is all the hype of how passionate people are toward each other.  That sex scene would reveal if the hype was just hype or real passion.  Making love does that.

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Erotic novels try to capture that passion and give it physical form. It indicates how creative we are when it comes to sex as quite frankly the ways we make love are legion and the ability to describe them with words is, in my opinion, a difficult art.  It is this descriptive wordplay of erotica that draws people to it.

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I have tried my hand at erotic stories.  Privately and both before I left the ministry and after. It is not as easy as you might think  Words that envoke fantasy and passionate sex are not just run of the mill words. There is a whole new vocabulary, grammar style and way of fitting words together to describe what two (or more) people are doing so not only can you see it with your mind, but feel it with your heart, smell it, taste it and feel eery sensual action. Try simply describing and writing out a sex act you had once nad capture al that and you will see what I mean

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Most of my erotic stories when I first started centered on married couples trying to resurrect passion in their lovemaking.  Later it became about forbidden love or even infidelity. Adding in fetishes and other human traits simply followed in these themes.  Recently though I have written about mental sex.  Two people sit down in a cafe and look at one another and basically have sex with each other in their imaginations.  It gets interesting to switch back and forth as they each have subtle differences in how they perceive each other. Sometimes they know each other, other times they don’t.  Nothing gets beyond the short story.

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Sensual words are something that impresses me now. It is hard to do them right and with effectiveness. Like all writers, those who craft erotic literature are all over the place as far as skill and depth.  Those that are the most skillful, seem to pull me into their world where I am not just a voyeur but a participant in the making love itself.

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Perhaps one day I will get it right myself and pull that off.

My Two Cents,

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“NaNoWriMo and 2020 Reading List” – The Rabyd Skald

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sif’s Day!

National Novel Writing Month?:

I have done National Novel Writing Month in November many times, I have also succeeded twice. As we approach November this time I haven’t participated in the last few years as I was focused on school and writing for that.   That said, I could do this but I am conflicted because I could also use the same concept for my Non-Fiction Book as a major restart and massive getting the work done time as well.  So is it National Non-Fiction Writing Month instead?  I think so and it has the same acronym.  My plan is basically also to do 60,000 words too.  That makes it easy with 2000 per day.

Recently though I realized my first non-fiction book should not be a scholarly work but rather my own story of my journey from faith to atheism.  It also has the flavor of being something I can do without a lot of research.  It’s my story or at least my memories of my story and that inspires a lot of the possible titles but I won’t get into that yet. What I  do know is that there is a high probability that this time next week I will be writing this book. By the end of November, I plan to have it mostly there.  December will be finishing it up and polishing.  Then I will sit on it in January and then Edit it in February.  I guess this is a good process that would allow me to produce and edit a book every three to four months and I think this is a good habit to get into.

I want to use the concept of NaNoWriMo to get started.   Eventually, as a writer, I can see a month to write a book, one month to let it rest while starting something else and then a month of editing.  Having one book being written while a second is being edited sounds like a good way to go.  It would lead to three books in the creative forge at a time but that is the life of a writer.

2020 Reading List: 

A week or two ago I changed my bucket list item under Truth form learning Latin to reading a book a week for the year 2020.  it’s one of those ‘so I can say I did it’ bucket list items. But also I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to my education.  So at the present time, I am looking into not only starting the habit of reading a book a week but also putting together my reading list ahead of time os that part won’t take a lot of thought other than to order the books in enough time to get to me.

Mostly I am looking at books under a couple veins but they have to be new to me in that I have never read them before.  This has to be a reading list, not a re-reading list.  I also am trying to hit a variety of topics but I have a couple themes

  1. Books that at one time were burned by religious people.
  2. Books on science particularly evolution the origin of life.
  3. Books by the Founding Fathers – I have read the federalist papers or at least most of them but some of the books by the founders like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense I have actually not read.
  4. Books on Economics and Political Science
  5. Viking Mythology and Culture (duh)
  6. Not to forget fiction – science fiction and fantasy probably but new stuff I haven’t read before.
  7. It’s going to be half non-fiction and half fiction.
  8. Half my fiction will be fantasy and the other science fiction.
  9. No book I am going to read in 2020 can currently be in my library.  I am using those books to get started the next couple of months to develop the habit. But the process of buying a new book and reading it is part of this.  I will make a few exceptions for books I just purchased for this purpose but other than that, I am going to read new shit.

Looking at this, I would say that it’s going to be a pretty eclectic list and I need to have it down before I start.  I do want to deal with one book I have put on this list because of #1 and it is a modern book: The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American by Andrew L. Seidel.  And the video below which was posted yesterday explains why.

Yeah. book burners piss me off. It tells me your afraid of what it says might disturb your precious world view.  It tells me ‘goose-stepping morons should try reading books instead of burning them’. 

My 2020 List So Far: 

The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American by Andrew L. Seidel.

Common Sense by Thomas Paine

 The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

Leviathan Wakes, Caliban’s War, and Abaddon’s Gate by James S A Corey

Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins

Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

It’s a pretty good start, but I plan on getting this list done before Yule so maybe they can be gifts to me.  🙂 I will probably organize this later to make sure I have a good mix but in the end, it is going to be what I want to read. Although I am interested in books that people have burned and they go to the top of the list.

I am planning on using Goodreads to document my progress and write reviews on the whole thing.  If you follow my Facebook page, you will get each review.

Closing Thoughts:

If you haven’t noticed Sif’s Day has become pretty much whatever I want to write unusually under the moniker – The Rabyd Skald.  I kind of feel this is needed right now because I am using it to fill gaps in my thoughts and the normal weekly process. I just don’t always feel like doing something ordered so the end fo the week is getting the last bits of Choas out of my brain.  Hope you don’t mind.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Revival – Asatru (Part 5)” – The Pagan Pulpit

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sol’s Day

Announcements:

We don’t pray here – we figure God, the gods, goddesses, or whatever powers that be either know already, don’t give a fuck, or are busy with more important matters than our petty stuff. We also kind of assume that they expect us to do stuff that we can do for ourselves and that we will do them ourselves and not be lazy. We also believe in being good friends, so we don’t presume on our friendship with the powers that be by asking them all the time for stuff while giving them nothing in return.

We also don’t take an offering here.  We figure the powers that be probably don’t need it.  Let’s be honest, offerings are not given to the divine powers, they are given to an organization to support it.  Just being honest. God, the gods or whatever never sees a dime, farthing or peso of that money; it all goes to the church, mosque or shrine.

Theme Song: ‘Herr Mannelig’ – Garmarna

Meditation:

 

Image may contain: 1 person, text that says 'Crazy World YOU DON'T HAVE A RIGHT TO THE CARDS YOU BELIEVE YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEALT. YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO PLAY THE HELL OUT OF THE ONES YOU'RE HOLDING.'

The situation is always changing and it is not always in your favor.  Regardless there is always the best way to play your hand and it is your obligation to find it.

Text:

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If you want more details about Asatru, I can’t recommend this book enough.

Sermon:

It is hard to say when the revival of the interest in Pagan Norse Religion really began. In some cases, we might say that it was preserved through family traditions and merging pagan traditions with Chrisitan ones. There was also a limited amount of writing done by historians and literature experts on Norse Mythology and religious practice.

Some argue that it was the early 20th century with the interest in Germanic ancient culture by the Germans that saw the start of it.  It is also a criticism that it might be colored by the Nazis but it is probably more likely to be the case of the Nazi’s using cultural trends to their advantage as far as PR.  Symbols and history are often coopted by those that rule to form a romanticism they tap into.  The romanticism though already existed because a lot of it can be traced back to the 19th century long before the nazi’s perverted the mythology and the Swastika.  I and many other people who study Asatru and history would say the chief deity of the Nazi party was Adolf Hitler himself, not Odin, Thor or Tyr.

In any case, in the last 70 years or so a revival of interest in ancient Northern European mythology has arisen.  Becoming more popular, as Diane Paxton observes, starting with the writings in England with Tolkein and CS Lewis. Robert E. Howard with Conan chimed in during the 1950s.  Is it any wonder that I have an interest in this mythology when what sparked my interest was these great writers and my own heritage.

In 1969, the same year I was born, the Odinist Fellowship was founded, followed by Viking Brotherhood in 1971 and Asatru Free Assembly in 1976.  All in America. In Iceland, Asatru became an accepted religion by their parliament in 1973 thus opening up the most direct route to a religious revival of ancient ways through Asatru.

What has followed has been a process of Norse paganism in Asatru arising and organizing into various groups. The 1990s saw a great deal of expansion and development. Publications and books are becoming more and more frequent.  I would say interest has been revived and increase due to the television series Vikings among many others.

For me, my personal story of ‘conversion’ to Asatru is a long one.  Like I said, I loved fantasy books from an early age. devouring CS Lewis, Tolkien, and Howard. Conan became a favorite hero of mine along with Gandalf.  I was a Dungeons and Dragons player and Dungeon Master for many years and that has this culture and religion as a large part of it.   The more I learned the more it fascinated me.  I suppose the crisis moment and conversion point would be me leaving Christianity for good last year and realizing my need for a new code of conduct.  I looked at many warrior codes, but Asatru appealed more than all of them because of this connection to my culture, history, and interests. My pagan tendencies tend to line up very much with Asatru.

This ends part one of my Asatru analysis.  Next will be a discussion of many of the Norse gods and goddesses and their significance to the followers of Asatru.

Parting Thought:

 

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Paganism does have some bit of a ‘dark’ side.  In that, most of us will do terrible things if the ones we love are threatened.  There is no turn the other cheek or forgiveness without restitution.  And if the person opposing us doesn’t offer us restitution or threatens to take what is ours, then we can get such restitution by other means.  You might say justice has a different meaning to us.  Your best course of action in dealing with us is being honest and respectful and mind your own business.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

Crossing Bifrost: The Norse World – Alfheim

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

Happy Sun’s Day

Alfheim. The land of the elves. Elves do not figure prominently in the Viking legends but they do appear often as spirits in Viking belief.  The high elves live in the higher realm of Alfheim. This is the hall and land of the Freyr who is one of the gods.

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I will get more into the light elves when I talk about them more directly but part of their personality can be seen in some respects in the land they dwell in.  Much like Valheim, Alfheim has no borders.  It is not wald because of the suffix ‘-heim’ rather than ‘-gard’.  That said there is a feeling of an odd combination of wild lands couple with civilization blending in harmony.

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Norse mythology does not play this realm or its people into the stories very much if at all. It has however been the inspiration of many things in literature and pop culture.  The most notable being the feeling one gets from Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings. But it has also spawned at least one online game and probably this notion of the perfect blend on civilization yet respecting the wilds of nature is very popular.

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For myself, I would say once again the ideas behind this realm came to me indirectly. Part of it I used in the now gone – Grove of the Red Tree as a setting for part of the Hedge Wizard of Redberg. That said there is this notion personally I have of a place where the comforts of civilization meet the wonders and beauty of nature. Alfheim fits that very nicely. I suppose there is some poetry I have done with Alfheim as the feeling I am after.

As for the elves that live there, they, of course, are everywhere.

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!

“Iron Maiden – Epic Metal Poets” – The Skald’s Lyre

/ Ed Raby Sr / Leave a comment

 

Happy Saturn’s Day

Musical Journal:

This week has been an interesting trip down memory lane as regards to music.  I have been revisiting an old but new friend – Iron Maiden.  In my teenage years, I found my journey through the metal bands of the day difficult for a lot of reasons but most notably was there were so many of them and secondly my religion was openly hostile to anything that looked evil.  Iron Maiden was just one of many great metal bands in the 1980s and I have to say must have listened to them a lot for a couple months back in the day but had to walk away.  I guess it is hard to tell greatness when things are new and back then metal music was still very new. But mostly there was no way a good ‘Christian boy’ was going to slap Iron Maiden posters on his wall with their mascot Eddie grinning back at you on them.

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I reflect a lot on this, as my musical choices these days have a large dose of “I don’t give a fuck what people think about what I am listening to”. One of the things I have toyed with is getting copies of some of those old posters and lining the wall with them in my new ‘man cave’ someday when I get one.

As for Iron Maiden themselves, I think they are one of those bands that reflects a musical genius that still resonates today.  The music itself is multilayered and skilfully done.  While not speed metal per se, they do have rifts that keep going and a fantastic drummer who does not stop. It is relentless metal you might say. Their lead vocalist is legendary.

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But it is not just the music but two other factors that make Iron Maiden a great metal band.  Firstly, their lyrics are top notch with intricate poetry.  I challenge anyone to pull up just the lyrics and read them and not think about how deep they can be.  Many of their songs are based on literature both books and poems so there is that connection whether it is Edgar Allen Poe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or Frank Herbert.

The poetic part I can appreciate much more now that I understand it better. I suppose I have to thank in part Miss Salty for that, ironically.  The fact that I now can go back an look at lyrics as poetry and see them a little deeper I have her to thank for that. At the same time, some of the pain associated with that relationship is why I listen to more music these days so…

Secondly, they understand that metal is a spectacle. They are one of those great concert bands that sounds better ‘live’ and puts on a real show for their fans.  Deep poetry, well done musical rifts and heavy metal theatre in one great package.

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Personal Significance:

Run to the Hills – This is probably for me the most known song of Iron Maiden.  The song is a commentary on the whole western settlers vs. Native Americans conflict.  Being a British band their criticism is scathing in some regards and to be honest, they have a good point.

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The Trooper – Based on Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Charge of the Light Brigade, This song is a high energy, which is also a social commentary on the soldier’s thoughts during battle and war in general.

Hollowed Be Thy Name –  The Lord’s Prayer line coupled with the story of a man condemned to execution.  Classic deep lyrics actually make this my favorite Iron Maiden song. The song is not so much about capital punishment as it is about death and facing it bravely, no matter what is on the other side of it.  Which the song basically asserts the truth of – no one knows.

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The Number of the Beast – Another Biblically based song.  One of the reasons I couldn’t have this band’s posters on my wall as a teenager. I am fairly sure it wouldn’t have been appreciated.

Murders in the Rue Morgue – Based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” it is another classic.

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I would like to say more but Iron Maiden speak as a band speak for themselves every song they write. For the playlist, I have tried to find live performances as much as possible because that is the best way to listen to them.  IMHO.

Playlist: 

Run to the Hills – Live 1985: (with band introduction)

The Trooper – Live 2013:

Hallowed Be Thy Name – Live 1982

The Number of the Beast – Live 2008

Murders in the Rue Morgue – Live 2005 – with introduction

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!