And twilight falls

This is the time of year when all things know that all things will end - except mankind, that is, which still thinks itself invincible because of its imagined superiority. People call themselves "Homo Deus", because they invented a new game of hide and seek, each one respectively and on their very own, and there they dominate the rules. But the rules are not made by man.

These people are highly intelligent. And incurably insane. They don´t know anything anymore about the simple joy of harvest. Their joys are complex and ever more complicated. It is not sin, for there is no such thing as sin, in which they indulge. But the complexity of their pleasures falls back upon them. They yearn for simplicity and do not know where to find it.

I do not know how to put it in words, exactly, that is. The more time I spend in the woods, the harder I find it to tell it to humans. I am not rich, far from that, and time was when I had issues with that. In fact, I am poor. But when I find an apple by the trailside, and some walnuts, and then I sit on a stump with a cuppa tree, this is like a feast to me.

Trees care for each other. It has now been scientifically proven that they communicate with each other via mushroom networks and nutritional exchange. This communication is complex and alien to man. And we can of course make our measurements and calculate our economic benefit from that knowledge... but we will not understand.

Maybe you can feel it. Maybe not. Either which way, any words would be futile.

I think I can feel it, sometimes. Something great moving through the woods, something which I would call peaceful and serene, but that does not do it justice. It uses no words, and words therefore are no use in describing it. It has no body, but I could tell a great many tales about the bodies it had through time.

Sometimes I think it now has mine, and lives in my heart and my soul and my spirit, and it feels good.

This is a strange time. We experience the fall of the kingdom of man, and we will be bereft of all we cherished so dearly... but we do not want to hear. They do not want to hear, because I listened, and I learned.

Ancient trees told me their tales, and I should say that if we will still have a chance, it lies therein.

A dark season it is. It is the realm of the holly king, of the twilight and the cold, cold nights of winter. Things we thought lifeless spring to life, and the living things that were so vibrant in spring go to their sleep.

Dark things instead come out, the monsters of the mind and of the tales. But that is not all there is.

The moon shines more brightly, or so it seems, but that is not all there is.

It is the season of stealthy walks through the thicket-but that is not all there is.

For it is also the season of the tales, huddled around a fire or the oven, of hot tea and cocoa and what goodness you can afford. It is the season of the dark, that much is true. But it is in a dark room that the candles shine more brightly. And even while dark things of the mind come up to the surface, so do the lighter and brighter tales. Of Tomte and troll, of Chrismas or whatever you call it.

And it is in the darkest hour of the darkest night that the light is born anew. This is the message of this season.

So feicin´what

 I have tried to be a decent member of our society. Indeed, I have. I have tried hard, so hard, that I suffered from it. I did a lot of things for others that I denied myself. For lack of time. For lack of opportunity, or so I was made to believe. For friends and institutions, for a friendly exchange, for social communities, for clubs and to save what could be saved. I have long since realized that I would quite certainly not save this bedlam of a world; and I thought, well,care for your friends and family and create comunities that care for each other.  I believed in friendship, even love, or, at least mutual benefit.

Advice: Don´t. There is no such thing as friendship. There is only an exchange in the best case, a deal, but exploit in most cases. Noone will give you anything out of free will, and nothing is for free. This is the brutal fact about modern man. There is no such thing as morality, either. People will lie to you, if they see any profit in it, would even kill you without remorse if they were not punished for it. If they could go unpunished, they would so, with no second thought or remorse, if only the profit is high enough . Even children are not innocent and are just the same as the adults. This is an utterly monstrous world we have created, and it will become ever worse.

But most of my faithful readers know this already, and suffered from it, and this post is not about whining. I will not bore you with the details of how I crashed again while just meaning well, just as it always happens. I will spare you the whining about how I am mobbed again on all frontiers. The deal with this blog is that you read this blog and you enjoy it, maybe some, at least, and at least some. You do not enjoy reading about how the world´s a shitty place. I daresay you all know it well enough without me contributing to all the bad feelings. You would not browse the internet for something as weird as this, were it otherwise. This post is about "So feicing what".

So feicing what am I obliged to play this silly game?

Recently Moritz called me. Now Moritz once was a kid whom I tutored to do the bunny hop way back in 2001 and whom I showed the way from the neighbourhood to the local trails. He always seemed to stick around, no matter what happened. Now he has moved to the South of Germany. ´Course he invited me along to "shred the local trails". He does not do much more than riding and works in the bike industry now on top. As I was declining the offer, he got a bit mad at me, and he made a fair point. I have been riding progressively less in the last years. I spent a lot of energy trying to fight for ruined smithies and funny people, and of course it is rewarding to forge something with your own hands, and to build up  a group that even stood together for some time, caring for each other and blah and blah and blah.

But when the turnaround is getting mobbed by the very same people you put together, you question what you have done. All of it. And it sucks, of course. What Moritz told me in somewhat drastic words was: What would they do for YOU?

The answer is: Naught. Never. Now it´s not that you do it for to get something back. You do it because it feels right, and it felt right and still does. But if you not only don´t get anything back, but get hit in the face for everything you do while meaning well, the logical consequence is that you do less. Equals even more getting punched in the face.

But, hey.... SO FEICIN´WHAT?

For there´s a new bike in my attic-turned-home. I got it courtesy of www.metal-motion-bikes.de (that much advertisement needs to be ;-) ), and the crazy folks on over just welcomed me and helped me a lot by building it the way they did. And when I strode into the shop, I got this feeling I missed while not knowing I missed it. Being part of the mountainbiking scene, and a vibrant part of it, for sure. I have been riding hard for some some 33 years now, and hard means hard. ;-) I rode down the Dalco trail at lake Garda at a time when a suspension fork meant 35mm of rubber pogo stick and fully sussed was not invented yet. Again I will not bore you with my dubious achievements of that time, how I filed my own cantilever brakes from aluminum that was way too soft so that they bent on the Kaprun downhill run of 1992 and how I bunnyhopped the bed in the appartment we had rented and how we devastated our rented rooms... we were younger then, and wilder, and the world belonged to us and our worries were petty. A lot has changed since these day. I am a bit proud that I might be even a faster and better rider in spite of my beer belly and aching joints. I am proud to have ridden with the best, and the best were not bored, in spite of my dubious cardiovascular fitness or riding finesse. It was about having fun, and we had fun.

And still my bike was standing somewhat neglected in my hallway, and I did not even bother to lube the chain or change the worn-out brake pads.

For the fuckers and morons were bashing me dead-or at least they tried. But there it was, standing in my hallway. My bike. You might know this phenomenon. There is something that is so much a part of your everyday life that you forget it is there. Sometimes you need someone to make you aware of it again. I certainly did, and Moritz applied for the job.       

Fact is, noone will ever accept me as a decent member of society at all. I got mobbed out of every institution, school, group or club I was in, even clubs I founded were not enthused to have me after a period of time. At the university, they tried, but I was one of the best and you cannot possibly bash someone who is having a teatime chat about academical issues with his mentors. I have tried to change the way I was, tried to be someone else, tried to be cooperative and beneficial even. Fact is, it does not work. What works, however, is getting in the saddle and get in some hard riding. Or some gliding along or toodling around. And the woods have never left me. 

 And this is what this post is about. It is about the woods. It is about wanting the light of a winter sun and cursing the raw ice on the trails. It´s about throwing raving insults at a puddle on the trail and laughing your head off on the way down. It´s about burning muscles and lungs and the feeling of flow and oneness on the trail. Call it as you like, but it is way bigger than the petty ways of mankind. That bike is just some eleven tubes welded together, a chain, some cogs, some rubber, pedals and a saddle. Nothing more, nothing less. And it´s not about the this and that of a label on your down tube.

 This is what it´s all about. This is why I can still say: So feicin´what! Drive me from the smithy as you wish, or leave it be. I am far more than just that. And I am far less than that. I have ridden mountainbikes for most of my life, I have carved wood for most of my life, collected herbs, tailored, worked with leather, tiled roofs, lay floor tiles, worked as a mason and a carpenter, as a scholar, in business promotion and city marketing as well as a gardener, a smith, a teacher. I have made knives, swords, tools, mead, food, have offered counsil and comfort to a lot of people. I have quite arguably saved at least some 100 lives in my life, in a most concrete manner. But the ten I could not save weigh far more heavily, and when I am out in the woods all this ranting and gibberish counts nothing.

 Still, I can get out there. And still, the hills convey meaning to me that ca not be easily put into words. 

And the bike, humble as it may be, is one way to get there. One means to escape for me. I cannot change this monstrous world of man. But I can change the way I think.

 I can ride down trails in the outback, feeling the icy wind in my face. I can scream into the wind and laugh my head off, and simply give a runny shit about what so - called friends jibber and jabber behind my back. Out there, it is about me, and the woods, and the wind. And thsi is what really counts. It´s about the soul, but more than that: It´s about your soul making friends with your body. Even if it is just a fading carcass, and my aching joints after a ride like this in the icy cold remind of this all too good, the soul can drive it to heights and abilities not easily accessed and not easily experienced. I am glad and grateful to have had the opportunity in my life to feel my body... and, by feeling it, getting to know my soul. The morons out there are moronss because they deny these feelings. They are zombies, undead creatures trying to prey on your soul, sucking on your life force while unable to even process it. I beg to differ.

 In these woods the path is shallow, but simple. Make silly mistakes, stack up big time. Go light on your brakes or go arse over teacup over the bars. Life is as simple as that. It is a brutal fact, and a brutal law you have to abide. Morality and love amongst fellow humans would make life easier, and were established to do so. But if these are not wanted anymore... I know the lay of fox and hare well, better than most. Being polite or even nice to others would make life easier for all-if all abide by this appointment. 

 Being out in the woods the way I have practiced now for a long time, as a spiritual practice, that is, changes what you are. And you are changed for good.Oh, no, I am not the best survivalist there is. I still like a warm room and a cozy armchair, agood book and a hot cuppa tea. But there is also something transgressing these feelings. It is hard to describe. And while the lay of fox and hare and the flight of the raptuous owl are part of it, so is the spring blossom and wintertime´s frost. I call it Skóggángr, but the word is meaningless compared to what it means. This is paradox, of course, and you can only understand it if you can´t understand it any more. 

 Seeing things like the ice crystals fills me with beauty and tranquility I miss in the world of man. Even careening down a steep singletrail fills my soul with tranquility. It is a feeling far removed from the "actual", from what is counting in the "actual world, and it derives not from a corporeal source, but from a soul.

 Riding across a river of ice might seem impossible or a silly idea even. But it´s not as silly as the stunted behaviour I lived last year. I lived it because I rejected one thought. It is a thought of severe consequences, and I did not dare to think it.

 It is the thought that occurs to me logically: In this world, I am the bad guy. I am the outcast who does not belong at all. i am the one thinking funny thoughts and being incapable of social behaviour. I am the one deviant, not the morons.

 SO FEICIN´WHAT? :-P

 They want me to be the same as I was. They want me to take responsibility for their silly actions. They want me to help them in their useless endeavours. They want me to live their futile life. They want me to join the throng and to be a good chap. But fact is, there are trails to be ridden and fun to be had. There is foraging to be done and dreams to be lived. There are songs to be sung and dances to dance and screams to be screamed on lonely mountaintops. There is craziness to be lived, animals to be befriended and eaten ;-). I now ride  a lot more and do a lot less forging, at least for others. There is nothing to be gained for me amongst people who just think in categories of gain and profit.They did not want my gentleness or politeness, nor my help. Now they must live with a wolf amongst their herd, or better, a wolf that does not try to befriend the sheep. For a wolf is a wolf, and sheep are sheep. I have realized this, finally.

 And the sinking sun greets me, and grants me light.

Lop the mistletoe,

 chop the golden bough...

 eat from the fruit of the forest.

:-P

So feicin´what? Off with me to another ride.

These murky woods - thoughts on the civic duty of escapism

 I like to think that I am a thinking man. I like to think that I have a reasonable amount of common sense. I have a day job like so many others, and like so many others I only find space for dreams and things that portray meaning to me in a world where human society subsedes. Of course I like to read fantasy novels, mythology and fairy tales and tales of mystery and imagination. For instance, I absolutely dug the laid Ursula K. le Guin´s Earth Sea cycle and have read all of it with gusto.

But I always did so with a sense of guilt and shame. It did not feel right to lose oneself in tales and dreams, when there where actual creatures of Evil roaming the Earth. Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, that Turkish fucker, that North Korean fucker and all the other fuckers who deserve more than death. Yes, that´s Fimbulmyrk ranting. Yes, that´s Fimbulmyrk hate-mongering. Yes, and Fimbulmyrk hates those fuckers even more so because those fuckers brought him that far. There are about one thousand methods of torture I would inflict on, say Donald Trump if it made any sense. But it does not make any sense. Because all hope for a better world is lost for good and there will be ever worse tyrants. It makes no sense to kill the tyrants or even hate them, because the next ones in line will be even madder and far worse. I would gladly kill myself, but what for? Even suicide would not make any sense any more.

Enter the grand old dame of fantasy. Ursula K. Le Guin, ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_K._Le_Guin) who died on January, the 22nd, said the following:


(source: https://www.facebook.com/authorchrisriddell/photos/a.857902824262731.1073741829.532119136841103/1630039517049054/?type=3&theater)

So many things are deemed escapist. My colleague at work says blacksmithing with children is escapist. Bushcraft is deemed escapist. Walking through nature is escapist. Spirituality is escapist, as is fantasy and literature and striving for an education that is not "push that button and shut up".

Notice summat?

People tell me that blogging is dead, and I was asking why. Because noone has time to read anymore and many people do not have the ability to follow articles that are longer than five lines, because they lack the span of attention required for more, they keep saying.

Many of the people in my acquaintance suffer from one or the other form of depression, most of them, to be exact. One of my friends who is in therapy right now, said she did not know the many things that are wrong with her before therapy, that she did not know exactly how deficient she actually was. So much for succesful therapy, by the way. Many of them cannot cope with the lack of any perspective in our world, with the ongoing warmongering, with the increasing pressure on the individual´s life, with the perverted turns of everyday life where nutrition is the new religion, and any other spirituality is absent and escapist and deficient.

Madmen are heads of corporation, and of city, and of state. Big-term business corporation own us all and do not even try to conceal the fact that they are the one who rule us. It´s not that they would kill you in case you don´t obey... you just do not belong any more if you do not play the game according to their rules. And the rules change like the weather and after unconceivable and absurd fashions.

That sheds an intersting light on the term "deficient perception of reality", innit?

And if you do not belong at all anymore, and feel left alone in the dark, then this post is for you. Because I want to tell you a secret.

They fear you.

They fear the archaic threat you pose.

They fear the twilight of murky woods. They can drive off darkness with the flick of a switch, everywhere, they can control nature to a frightening degree... but they cannot control the wilderness in your mind.  

They fear the other world. They fear God and the Gods and what is lurking beneath. And by belittling everything of real substance, crafts and art and fantasy, spirituality and belief, they hope to free themselves from the nagging doubts that grow like a cancer and grow and spread. They fear the werewolves and the spirits of the dark as well as the light. They are by definition, grey and Evil. They are the worsest of the worst.

The mist fell on ancient hills. After work, I set out for a bimble. So, you say, are you not afraid of wild pigs or wolves or racoons or foxes? No, I say. I am afraid of bankers and economists and politicians. No wolf could do that much harm to me. No wild pig would want to tear my soul apart and leave it throbbing with pain in a darkness that is no darkness but an abyss that defies definition. Then, you ask, are you not afraid, at least, if you are such a superstitious guy, of the spirits of the dark? Of what is lurking in the realm of twilight behind the threshold you so often mention?

But, in a world where light is only neon, and neon alone and thou shalt not relish in the warm flicker of the golden light of a candle, I have no shame anymore of unbecoming human, but something deeper and darker, with gnarled roots in the rock of the other world. I am a teller of secrets untold and unborn. I am the whisperer in the twilight. I am unbecoming human, and I am walking the masked path of twilight fury. I mean no bodily harm to anyone... but I know not shame anymore in telling the tales of the murky woods.

I have no shame in becoming the violent twilight. I have no mercy anymore. I have no guilt in killing with a word of power, a song of insanity, a sword I found in the other world, of killing the souls of the grey ones once and for good. For they fear, and I feed on their wrath and their fear to become even stronger. Yes, fear shall follow them, fear of the murky woods. Yes, peaceless by restlessness they shall become. Yes, they shall have no respite anymore, anywhere. I am a part of the darkness, I walk the masked path through the thicket of my fantasies... in stealth I tread to find a path into their dreams. There, at the threshold between wake and sleep, I will be lurking to ravage their soul. Care to join me?
 

And the most powerful weapon I have is being myself. A dreamer. A teller of tales, a whisperer of secrets, a part of the woods they so much fear. 

Try it. Sit by a stream in the murky woods. Listen to its song. And unbecome human. become the wildness of your mind instead, the clawed and horned animal that thrives in the deepest of the woods of your mind, the sorcerer, the maiden, the warrior, the mother, the child, and man and woman and beast alike. Scream the love of your live into the raging, ravaging storm - and become the storm, laughing as the absurdity of their ways is tattered by your breath.

Find the words that are the weapon of these songs, find the blade that is silence, find the tales it sings and tells. Do not harm their bodies - but strike back with the hardest force when they attack you. Escape from a reality that is not real, escape from a tyranny that is more than a tyranny of the body, but a prison for your soul. And fight. Always guard your dreams and never feel ashamed of your soul.

No, you are not perfect. Yes, you are dyfunctional. Yes, you are escapist.

Make it your sword, and always keep it shaving sharp. And protect your like and kind with every living breath and strive to take as many with you as you can.

Krampus, Yule time, skóggángr and penitance of the wicked

 Whether you call it Chrismas time or Yule time, there is no denying of the fact that these are special times. Being fed up with the clash of religions and all the ranting and self-entitlement going on on the web and elsewhere, I took some time to contemplate: What is it that makes this time special, and what do all the opponents have in common? The answer is quite easy. Remove the names and all that paraphernalia and you have one fact. Up until the 21st of December, which was the original date for Chrismas eve, the nights become ever longer, and the 21st. December as the winter solstice is the longest night. It is the triumph of darkness, if you so will-and its ultimate defeat. But darkness and light are both necessary sides of the same coin... no winter, no summer, no death, no life. The birth of the light unfathomed (Sól invictus) was allegorically transponed into the birth of Christ, but contaminated with a lot of ancient pagan beliefs, customs and traditions, one of which is the "Chrismas demon". In the Alps and in the South of Germany, there still is the figure of "Krampus", a word which derives from Old High German "Krampa"/ "Krampan", Old Gothic: "Krampja", meaning claw /claws, a horned spirit with a load of fangs and claws.


(source: Mörk djevels, Ennstal, Steiermark, Austria)

While in Christian times everything with horns on is evil, the Krampus actually acts as a bringer of morale, even in a Christian sense. Krampus is a part of St. Nicolas host, something like the minion who takes the evil children to hell. Krampus was said to be a descendant of Loki, son of Hel, but also derives from the horned Gods of nature. One aspect is the holly king.



(Source: https://scontent-amt2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/1743556_234785993373145_1520561743_n.png?oh=671d55cc72782d00bd00ca3b777a65e3&oe=5AD1FC17)

The holly king is the "green man" of English folklore and shares a lot of similarities to Cernunnos, the horned god, Herne the hunter, Robin Goodfellow and others.


(image source: Wikipedia)

Back to the figure of Krampus. He is never depicted as outright evil, but as a kind of negative psychopomp and acting as a cautionary mythological figure. The Krampus is a wood sprite (said to live in the deepest woods) in some traditions, and stands for the violent forces of nature. In a different place on this blog I have already referred to my presumption or theory that the Norwegian "Trolls" might have something to do with the "skóggángr mannar", the wood-walking men, people who had been banished from society due to a sentence, denying them the privilege to be a part of human society any longer. With the Krampus, however, I found a striking example of a Mongolian shaman costume:


(image source: pinterest)

This costume shares a lot of similarities to the Krampus costume. These are: Horned mask, sound-producing implements, a "shaman´s whip" (in the case of Krampus the bundle of birch twigs serves the same purpose besides being used to punish nasty children), staff (often a Krampus also holds a staff with bells on), shaman´s sword:



(image source: pinterest)

bells and drum. The shaman in Mongolian society, while being called a holy man, often came to shamanism via a mental illness or any other character trait that distinguishes him from the norm. He is ab - normal in a purely descriptive sense. Often he is a person of higher intellect and education, but not necessarily so. In most cases he lives away from the community of other men. Robinson (1985) postulated a correlation between introversion and emotional intelligence, just to mention it along. In any way, the shaman is seen as someone sitting on the hedge between the worlds. Having had the privilege to converse and make closer acquaintance with a genuine Mongolian shaman several years ago I can say that this quite certainly distinguishes a genuine shaman from all those self-entitled morons running around selling their so-called dream-travels. That gentleman was extremely practical-minded and saw his spirituality in much the same way in which he put up to everyday tasks. He was actually quite down-to-earth, but also had the capacity of having "one foot in the spirit world", as he put it.

In Mongolian society, the shaman is living apart from human society, not because he is despised or in any way banished, but because he is dangerous in a sense, dangerous because of a power that elevates him from human society. He is not entirely human, but able to share characteristics with spirit and animal. He is the one who talks to the world of spirits. In Saami culture, there are stories of shamans you could only look at through an iron ring to be able to survive their gaze.

The Krampus is something that lurks in the darkness and stands for the dark half of the year. Like trolls and dwarves, like elves and dragons, like white women and death itself, he stands for the uncivilized, for the woods, for the counterworld of civilization. In Arthurian romance we find the hero venturing into the woods where adventures, monsters and fair maiden dwell, to test his fortitude and then return as initiated to the court. It is a rite of initiation. 

 The light dies, and the forests are covered in twilight. Moonlight reigns supreme, and if you really venture into the woods in actual these days, chance is, you will be faced with darkness sooner or later. It is quite realistic that even on a short bimble in winter you will be having a problem with falling dark. Now I love being outdoors in the woods, and I also do it in winter, and I long ago learned that a handtorch is of little use in nocturnal forests.

 There is something soothing as well as terrifying in the falling night in the forest. The terrifying thing is that things awake that were asleep at daytime. The trees move and creak, and, being rapt of other notions, your stimulated hearing makes a show of even the faintest of noises-of the rustling of dry leaves in a breeze, of the hooting of an owl and the stealthy stride of the fox.

 You can still see the faint outline of light, but the forest grows ever darker.

 And in the twilight, unseen wonders emerge.

 The message of the Krampus is that there is terror lurking beyond, a terror that is not evil, but violent in its magnificience. It contains wonders unfathomable by man and not made for man to hold. Like the fairy gold or the elf - shit at the end of the rainbow ;-) as a positive connotation, there are monsters hiding in the darkness, spirits like the wood - devil. They belong to the dark side of the year, into winter and autumn. They are dangerous to even look at, but come with a message.

 In our world, however,we have lost this balance. We have banished the dark forces of nature from everything and thusly also robbed the force of light of its power. We know not how it is to huddle besides a fire while outside the wolves and winds howl through the chimney. We like to have a hot drink in winter-on the couch, while watching TV. But we do not know anymore how it feels to have a fire going in a cold winter storm and getting warm and closing one´s fingers around a steaming hot mug of cocoa while around one the storm is driving snow against one´s lean-to. We do not know anymore how it is to walk through a dark forest, when your imagination and your mind lead you on a different path.

To me, Chrismas season, or Yule tide, if you so will, always was a war between the dark and the light forces. The message of the winter solstice is simple: Do not despair-after the darkest night the light will return again, and a different year is born anew.

Now our society puts a lot of emphasis on stating that we are the good ones. We are praying to the forces of light, we bring other cultures the "light of civilization", the enlightenment movement has convinced us finally that there are no gods and no god at all.

Let me put it this way: St. Nicholas and Krampus do not agree at all. ;-) What we have done to nature and our fellow human beings, and what we are doing even now as I write, is worthy of the worst of the bad guys. We do not need to fear any devil anymore; we were better to fear ourselves.

 But there are good news-or bad, that depends on your perspective. The old myths currently somehow rewrite themselves. Somehow old Krampus jumped out of the box this year, being all the rage (pun intended). If you listen, he might have a message for you.

I personally feel that Krampus has a lot to do with Skóggángr. Having had a hearty fill of mankind just recently, with all the frustration and shitstorming going on as usual, I was feeling disgusted and again I thought the fault was that of the others. My shitty job, my shitty employer, my so-called friends that turned out to be absolute morons again, all their fault, isn´t it? But it´s not. It´s all mine. I thought I was a social guy and did a lot for others and forgot myself as usual and still got mobbed. Now I get mobbed since I went to a Kindergarten, and ever since, with no exception whatsoever. All by perfectly normal guys, and it does not help me any that I always was right in the end. The truth is, I do not belong into the enclaves of mankind. I grew up in a forest. The terrors of the wildwood are soothing for me. I talk to spirits and dance under the moon. I am wild, and I always was. I walk paths in moonlight that others would not dare even considering in broad daylight.

No, this is not braggery, but merely a fact, and a fact I could live without or maybe not. In fact, I cannot be anyone else than I am, with the exception of the many things I have to work on and work on.

 This is my world, the world of twilight. I do fairly well in the world of daylight, but this is where I belong.

 I walk out of their world deliberately, and I return to tell the tales, as I do with this post.

 That Mongolian guy laughed hard when I asked him to tell me what I was, what he saw in me, and he just said that I would see in time.

"Sympathy with the Devil", if you so will, but is it? I daresay Krampus can take you for a wild ride. He will die, and his death is right and righteous and necessary for the birth of light, but he is the psychopomp that can lead modern man into the woods still, into the actual woods as well as into those of your mind, where fairy tales are born. Oh yes, some get lost in the process and chucked to hell... but even hell is a far more agreeable destination than the world we are about to create. And the hell of legend always is a purgatory, a place of initiation. Skóggángr is something that somehow occured to me. The term just fascinated me, and I daresay there is a lot more to it to be discovered.

Become a creature of the wildwood. And walk the world of man to remind them that you´re dangerous, not because you mean harm to anyone, but because it is your very personality and character. Become dangerous not like a mass - murderer or lunatic is. But because you are one with a wolf, an owl, or winter. Be Yule, and Yule will reward you with the gift of light in the darkest hour.

And remember to fill your boots with leftovers from the feast for Krampus and put them outside! You never know... ;-)