Elden Ways, Society

These Injuries

Quickly ushered in symptoms of old age.

The woman figured out that maybe if she was tricked into giving up her youth’s ghost through despair to the Crone, that somehow the Crone would get to take her youth and run away with it as her own.

So the woman fought to stay aware and maintain her claim – although why she had to keep fighting for her own right of ownership of her soul’s being joined to this body through birth was still unknown.

Her purpose here must be significant, somehow.

In fact, every human and creature’s existence here was significant.

But many forces were trying to dumb them all down by the toils of struggle and hardship and turn them against each other.

Such behaviors from these forces indicated symptoms of propagated madness, but the continuous barraging pummeling of hatred’s overwhelming destabilization between kin, community, and country kept fresh the stench of feverish violence and resultant fear of the truth.

It was no wonder why so many avoided awareness and stayed complacent.

False messages promised, “If you stay still, maybe we won’t eat you” – to the amassed and corraled together bleating lambs for the slaughter.

Elden Ways

The Elven Mark

Surprisingly, the curse from the pendant that she had briefly tried on so many years ago at the Bay Area farmer’s market upon her first return from Egypt had not destroyed her.

Her compassion for the lashing, envious female energy attached to it and then transferred onto her like a hateful shroud  that tried to pry at her pride and ego daily had to find other ways to break apart the woman’s spirit.

So it worked on the weak-willed who would love her, finding ways to expand their fears and self concerns so that they would turn away from and abandon her.

It called upon the chaotic rage of smoke and turmoil from the wild fire’s release to entrap her within a car accident in order to tear her apart from the inside.

And when this was still not enough, it used the charged energy from solar flares and primed potential for slippage in a hotel bathroom shower to further try to control.

But the problem was, this human just kept staring back into the mirror at the spell’s harmful intentions and signs of caused wreckage upon her face and body.

And it became clear that the woman didn’t desire anything but to be free, happy, and prosperous with her family and to at last be with her soul’s partner in blessed and loving harmony.

She didn’t want to fight other humans for resources, or to corrupt, or to take from anything earthly and leave it barren.

And the more the spell worked upon her, the more the woman just turned earnest and sad, resolute eyes to the mirror saying, “I am still here…and I will outlast thee.”

Now, even the spell, itself, began to feel unworthy.

Elden Ways, Lone Wolf

ReIdentification

But they had not deserved what had happened to them – even though they could find plenty of fault in reviewing their own past “mistakes” and extreme behaviorisms enacted that had originally stemmed from source of good and worthy intentions, but had become corrupted over time by continued unrequitement.

So she gently-but-firmly held onto him, refusing to let him go until the spell was broken and their phasing could match – whether back into wolf, human, or some other form better for coinciding.

Elden Ways, Lone Wolf

Aggravation

The black wolf burst into growling, at once feeling the “threat” to their situation.

But rather than let him dig and burst out to attck the well-meaning healer, she grabbed onto him, aware that his scrabbling sharp claws and pierce-snapping jaws could at any moment turn against her.

Surprisingly, he didn’t attack her.

He at first fought against her arms restraining him – but then hearing her cries of pain as her wounds ripped and feeling her will’s determination that for some reason he must stay still in her arms, his aggression subsided into quiet, trembling panting.

She had realized something.

She and the wolf were caught in a duality polar opposites enchantment.

She determined that they would stay in the earth’s concealment, and be receptive to their curse being broken.

Elden Ways, Lone Wolf

Above Ground

There was a younger woman looking for her, reading the signs, wanting to find and help her as she checked mounds of leaves to try to identify the tree for where she should begin digging.

But while she appreciated the love and healing that could be shared and provided by this younger one, she willed that for once just leave her there and buried.

She was hurt and tired with her youth’s luster pounded out of her.

She quieted her heart’s beating, willing her cell energy to slow, mask, and blend with the earth’s conduits.

Let her fuse with the elements.

Perhaps they would be her redeeming.

She couldn’t bear the heaviness and pain anymore of trying to work against gravity.

So let her soul become heavy…

Heavy as stone.

Elden Ways, Songs

“A Great, Vasty Emptiness” (Song)

By Athena Stairs, October 25, 2025

Well of Souls in this
Emptiness of space

Where life bloomed once
Now diminished to trace

When hearts retract
Feeling under attack

By fears’ apprehension
Or encouragement’s lack

Like dust in the wind
Remains where’d begin

And burial grounds
Are what we’re left with

—-

Elden melodies of mourning.

(Title from a reference to the movie “Serenity”)

(Please contact me for permissions)

A Man's Journey, Athena, Elden Ways, Myths & Legends, Songs

“Golden Gates” (Song)

By Athena Stairs, October 25, 2025

I remember you from Elden days
As a whisper upon the wind

When love was just a shadow
In a world submerged in sin

And everywhere I’d follow
Led to high cliffs or dead ends

No money begged nor borrowed
Could erase our souls as kin

And if I were to tell you
We were someday meant to be

Would it be enough to hold you
Now we’ve found this reality?

My light it’s always been you
We have followed in its wake

The purest of intentions
Our blood never forsakes

Yet I who’ve come before you
Knows youth that still debates

How much longer when so close
Before our keys open the gate?

And instinct burns the scriptures
Where the wicked stole our fate?

For lifetimes we have witnessed
From afar the promised land

In each other’s eyes in passing
Swore an oath to hold your hand

Come to me now
Come home at last

It’s time we feast
On love’s repast

And all the world
Will know at last

What it feels like
To be truly blessed

Come revel with me
Breathe in the scent

Of Eden’s garden
No longer Hellbent

Children of God
As our descent

No longer cast
Far to wander

Come meet me
At the alter

Where our hearts
Spring wings anew

I know you
I know you

I know you
It’s true

I know you
I love you

Free at last
Me and you

—-

Haunting Elden melodies of longing.

(Please contact me for permissions)

A Man's Journey, A Return To Innocence, Elden Ways, Featured Artists, Myths & Legends, Reclamation

(Stars – Eriks Esenvalds, Oregon Repertory Singers)

Dr. Ethan Sperry, Artistic Director
Lisa Riffel, Assistant Conductor & Choir Manager
Naomi LaViolette, Accompanist

David Peterson, Producer & Editor

Stars
Music: Ēriks Ešenvalds
Lyrics: Sara Teasdale

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still

And a heaven full of stars
Over my head
White and topaz
And misty red;

Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
The aeons
Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill
I watch them marching
Stately and still

And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty

Elden Ways, Psychology

Traumatic Violence

A human Elden noted the other day – which I myself have observed aplenty – that my life patterns keep getting conscripted into this negative cycle of human experience.

I would like to step off from and leave this track behind me.

May it decay into inert elements, reclaimed by the Earth’s natural environment, where things such as iron in rust can serve better as soil nutrients.

Elden Ways

Self Blame To Fame

She had wondered why therapies had never gotten to the source of her torment – why they never did more than to simply illuminate truths she had already known, and yet her suffering was still ever present.

There is often an automatic default  misperception in “victims” that somehow they may have caused abuse inflicted upon them – as if they’d had a choice somehow and by being present in that moment of the event(s) had given their consent.

Yet, why could she never absolve herself of this in some form of self forgiveness?

Wherin anchored her imbedded, ruthlessly gripping sense of irrefutable accountability?

Was it because she had chosen to come to this plane, and as horrors inflicted upon her she could hear Elden voices abrading and laughing – because she had, indeed, chosen to be here in this time?

But she had never claimed that Mankind could not be worse than the most vicious of maddened animals.

She had claimed that Good could, would, and wanted to emerge in this species despite pressures – not realizing that she, herself, must apparently become the example!

Elden Ways, Stream of Thought

The Queen’s Gambit

The Eliterish had ridiculed her faith in humanity and disparaged her learned assertions to where the only way that she could prove clemency needed on Man’s behalf was to cast off her powers and become one of his children.

But in becoming human, her Elden memories became suppressed, and what accompanied her in youth’s vulnerability were nightmares of humanity’s attrocious deeds imbedded in the genetic code of her now transformed DNA, whispering and weeping to her subconscious at night when she fitfully tried to sleep.

And Man’s twisted, tormented half-lifers were drawn to her – darkness exposed that attacked her innocence and tried to pass on its infection, so that as she grew, she suffered from confusion’s misdirection while struggling to regain access to Truth’s enduring instinct.

Sage human Ascensionists saw her light and attempted to conscript by pursuasions, but she veered away from their illuminations seeking to harness and repurpose her intentions.

She knew she was not one of them, for though she could speak their language fluently, they could not return in kind.

She was here for a specific mission and could not risk misguided temptations.