Category: Elden Ways
In Every Way (Song)
By Athena Stairs, December 2, 2025
Every time I pass your way
I think about what you might say
The leaves near gone as turning gray
Fall marking time of every day
Of longing to behold your face
Though memory clings permanent
My dear if you would grant us grace
Our love would light the firmament
—
Elden tones.
(Please contact me for permissions)
At The Alter
An older and younger woman
Unpressured, face each other
And I am the middle phase
Walking down this pathway
It’s time I pull myself together
Only so far fragmenting leads
Too many directions pulling at me
Where love unreturned continues
When I Grow Up
Courage To Bridge (Strangers – Ben Bohmer)
Wild Magic
“I haven’t had my hair long since when I was a very young child – and I wonder if like Samson’s it holds power.”
Elden Proverb
Beware of the dream that you can run away from
Because maybe what’s driving you to shouldn’t
(I Tried – CloudNone & Kazukii)
Earth Magic
Dig down deep into the ground
Closing eyes so they may see
Old wounds still festering
Hiding truths of you and me
Let them bleed out by confessing
Without harm to our life’s legacy
We are not flawed nor broken and
Must allow ourselves to break free
From enchantments still denying
How we have always been worthy
And are designed for
Love’s greatest glory
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.
Defining The Object
She knew where it must have happened…
They had both given too muvh to past mates who had not wanted them, and other competitors had come along, taking advantage of their life bond’s power imbalances.
They had each been so open-hearted and invested that they had not realized their own vulnerability – and had been blasted by hits of betrayal.
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.
Elemental Healing
The younger woman realized that she must have found the place by how the environment suddenly went very still and silent, as if everything were listening and guarding.
“Still as a tomb” – that was the feeling.
She realized that something different was needed here than she had originally thought and intended.
Deeper earth magic…
Deeper healing.
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.
Man & Woman: Strengths
King Of The Mist
Oh night time spirit of Elden white
Blessing revealed in bright sunlight
Wherefore have gone without a kiss?
Your courage my boon sorely missed
Youth’s Exploitation
“We are told that our value decreases as our age increases – but that is because ‘elders’ cannot be so easily manipulated.”
The Elders Gave
A warning
To not seek
The Source
For if it
Doesn’t
Accept
An open
Heartfelt
Offering
Sanity
Yields
Forfeit
“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)
“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)
(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
Return Of The Bird Tribes
There’s legend
Steeped of old
Telling of those
Of birds’ likeness
Facial bones contored
Body shape emulating
Creatures capable of
Traveling mystic airs
Magic pouring from
Sweat when working
The arts coming
Natural attuning
For now few yet
Have been born
But the chosen
Grow stronger
Ard Rhi
He could never
Be her consort
Tradition demanded
Much more than this
Congruency
Our paradigm is shifting rapidly
Past the ignorance of violence
Past outdated modes of fear
And ever restless tyrannies
Elden Ways are filtering
Streaming into this realm
As if the others left behind have
Found cause to support humanity
Our species share bloodlines
From past alliance marriages
It only makes sense that all rally
To ensure parallels may coincide
Ahead Of My Time
“More of my people have been coming into the world, but it is difficult to have had to come before them to help hold open way.”
The Elder One
“She was the one we eventually learned we could count on.”
I Was The Secret
“I had not known they were protecting me.”
(Whisper And The Wind – Bodie)
The Pure Ones
Ancients so old, they became a part of Time’s fabric – yet could still be reached by those who had worked hard, then broken, then worked hard again for the truth despite society’s unrelenting resistance.
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.
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!
Word Of The Day: Rish
Brave & dominant ruler, Sage, Saint, One who meditates on Lord’s Name, Seeker of enlightment.
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.
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