Tag Archives: Weird Sisters

Waincraft and Concepts of Time

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So, those who have been following along with the Getting to Know the Powers series may have noticed references in the past four essays to time. There are six Powers who are associated with time as a concept in Waincraft – Abundance, Winter, Blood, Rain, Sun, and Moon. But these deal with different types of time and related concepts.

Abundance deals with time in the greater arc, the time of space-time and the fundamental quality that we experience as progression, age, change and ordered passage. This is clock time, science time, abstract time, philosophical time, counted in minutes and hours and centuries and aeons.

The Weird Sisters as a whole represent time as the three-fold spiraling progression of before, during and after. This is life time, social time, measured in breaths and events, years and decades and generations, families and cultures.

Winter is the first part of this spiral, and deals with the has been, the was, the already happened. In the cosmology, this portion of life time is associated with everything that lies under the surface, the unseen, the bones and worms and strange sea creatures and pale blind fish in dark underground pools. The past cannot be reached or seen or felt, but only imagined, remembered, told about, because anytime you try to get below the surface, you only create more surface

Blood is the second part of this spiral, and deals with the now, the is, the happening. In the cosmology, this portion of life time is associated with everything that can be seen, felt, reached, or touched – the surface as a sensate half sphere whose boundaries are formed by the past (under the surface) and the future (beyond the horizon) This is, in a sense, the only time we ever truly know, because we live in an ever-changing, never-moving moment of Now that a millisecond ago was To come, and a millisecond from now will be Then.

Rain is the third part of this spiral, and deals with the to come, the will be, the maybe. In the cosmology, this portion of life time is associated with beyond the horizon – that which cannot be seen in the now, and thus cannot ever be pinned down and definitively described. It is everything that lies beyond our reach and our knowledge. Tomorrow truly never comes, because by its very nature, it is unobtainable, just as no matter how long you travel or how high or low you climb, the horizon remains always out of reach, and what lies beyond out of sight and knowing until that beyond becomes here and now.

Sun and Moon, being children of Abundance, are markers of cyclical time, time in the lesser arc, the time of measurements and repetitions. This is calendar time, measured in days and weeks and months and seasons, the time of planting and harvesting, of building and repairing, of sailing and fishing and gathering. There are roughly 3.09 moon cycles per solar quarter (solstice to equinox, or equinox to solstice, or in the four-season year), or 4.12 cycles per solar third (for those who prefer three-season years) This yields, when rounded, twelve 30 day lunar months with 5 excess solar days (6 in leap years), or twelve 29 day lunar months with 17 excess solar days (18 in leap years). Waincraft does not have a set religious calendar, but one could be created based on lunar, solar and seasonal cycles for each person’s bioregion.

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Getting to Know the Powers: Rain

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A basic introduction of the deity
Rain is the third and youngest of the Weird Sisters, born of the union between Abundance and Night, granting her the understanding and power of both time and space, and making her the only Power other than Night to comprehend the totality of the Great Pattern. Thus, she is a power of foresight, birthing (of both children and ideas), nurturing, vision, prophecy, and idealism. Her knowledge of the Pattern creates in her ceaseless wonder and love for all of existence and its beauty. She is joyous and free-spirited and exuberant, running like her beloved horses across the vast plains of the sky, whirling and dancing through the storms of her husband, Sky. But she can also be sorrowful, weeping in dark clouds and pouring cascades, for all things must die in time; and she is merciless when that time has come for ending, for seeing what must be as she does, she holds no tolerance for grasping at what is not due.

Symbols and icons of this deity
Rowan trees and berries, grain stalks/sheaves, rainbows, horses, loom, swan feathers, flail/scythe, hair brush/comb (especially an ornate comb of bone or silver), veil, cauldron, fan, pictures of clouds, rainwater

A favorite myth or myths of this deity
The Weird Sisters
The story has been told of how the world was created – of Night’s love, and her twin consorts, and the four elemental twin-pairs. But the world ran wild, without purpose or pattern, in exuberance and fecundity overreaching the limits of possibility. And the Mother saw this in her Knowing, and realized that something would need to be done to reign in the excesses of creation, and to guide her children along the path. And so, she took a hair from her head, and twisted it into thread, so long that only she, in her vastness and Knowing, could see both the beginning and end of it.
And she took the thread, and wove it about herself, and lay with the Wild One, looking back towards the beginning of all things, and in time, bore a daughter, child of darkness and cold and magic, and this daughter picked up the beginning of the thread, and began to spin all the stories of the past into a spool. And this was the Keeper of the Past, who looks into the well of the Underworld and gathers all the memory of the dead.
The Mother took up the thread again, and wove the middle section about herself, and faced the present moment. And this time, she took to herself both twins, the Light and the Dark, Wildness and Abundance, and bore a daughter of both their seed, child of dark and light mixed. And this daughter saw all that lay around, and how it played into the greater pattern, and picked up the spool that her sister had spun, and began ply the yarn and set the warp. And this is the Keeper of the Present, who looks at the middle world and sets the pattern on what is and has been, keeper of the golden sands of time.
And yet a third, and final time, the Mother took up the thread again, and wove the end about herself, and lay with the Keeper of Time, looking forward to the unknown. And she bore of him a third daughter, bright and fair and with far-seeing eyes. And this daughter looked to the sky, and saw the unfolding of the pattern in the clouds, and took up the plied thread, and with shuttle in hand, began to weave the weft of what she had seen. And this shall be the Keeper of the Future, who looks beyond-the-horizon, and dreams what the pattern may yet be.
And so the limits of time were set, and the pattern made manifest, and the Sisters spin and weave the lives and places of all.

Members of the family – genealogical connections
Mother – Night
Father – Abundance
Siblings – Divine Twins, Winter, Blood, Earth, Sky, Water
Consorts – Sky; Wildness and Abundance
Children – Wind

Other related deities and entities associated with this deity
Winter
Blood
Sky
Water
Healing
Renewal
Sun
Wind

Names and epithets
Lady of the Grain, Mother of Harvest, Golden-Hair, Mysterious Becoming, Weaver, Grower, Mother of Horses, Planter, Kinswoman, Rain-Dancer, Rainbow Maiden, Mother of Clouds, Rowan Tree, Lady of the Plains, Prophetess, Sibyl, Priestess, Frith-Weaver, Mother of Rain, Lady of the Rowan, She of the Far-seeing, Lady of Sight, She Who Binds Together, Lady of the Heart, Beloved
Sif/Sibb, Frigg, Macha, Ragana, Gróa, Dēkla, Carmenta, Alruna, Thalna. Iris, Skuld, and Sjöfn are all Euro-American deities and spirits that can potentially work in this slot, for those pursuing specific cultures and mythologies.
A non-Euro-American deity that works is Saranya.
A Euro-American (Finnish) deity that works but should probably not be used due to oppression/appropriation issues is Rauni.
Euro-American deities that work but should not be used oppression/appropriation issues are Ravdna (Sami) and Aide (Basque)

Variations on this deity (aspects, regional forms, etc.)
Rain has three main aspects, as well as her combined role as Fate with her sisters: The Connector, the Nourisher, and the Harvester
The Connector is the joiner of hearts, minds, bodies and souls. She is the power of connection, of relationship, of family and friendship, kith and kin, love and community. She engenders peace and bonding between people with differences, and ensures hospitality and courtesy in the home and community.
The Nourisher is the power of nurture, growing, wonder, and support. She loves children more than anything else, and those that help others become more than they were. She dances in the rain, and fills the sky with beautiful rainbows and all manner of cloud animals and persons. She whispers to the saplings and green shoots, encouraging them to grow in the gentle drip of the rain.
The Harvester is the face of Death that Rain embodies – Death-as-Reaper, the death that harvests persons like stalks of grain. This death is the death that takes the toll of millions through famine, pestilence, plague and other mass non-violent deaths. The death that weeps for the necessity as she performs her duties, and whose tears, falling like rain, resurrect the dead anew.
The fourth major aspect of Rain is her role as Wother, or Singer, of the Weird Sisters. She is the one who sees the whole of the Great Pattern in the clouds and stars of the Upperworld, and weaves it out in the loom of fate, singing everything that will be into existence. She weaves the thread of the future as the weft, making the pattern exist by her very presence and magic. She sees all that might be, all that must be, all that should be, and her hands and heart give shape to the future.
In all her forms, she appears to me as a woman, just out of youth, with golden-white hair, dressed in the colors of the rainbow. Her eyes vary from the grey of rain to all the blues of the sky, and as distant and unknowable as the future

Common mistakes about this deity
None known

Festivals, days, and times sacred to this deity
Festival of Reciprocity
Festival of Thanksgiving
Tribe Moon
Grain Moon
Harvest Moon
Noon

Any mundane practices that are associated with this deity?
Childcare
Teaching
Cloud-watching
Dancing in the rain
Harvesting crops
Horse-riding
Weaving
Hospitality (hosting, boarding, etc.)
Community involvement

How does this deity relate to other gods and other pantheons?
Prophetess/Nurturer

How does this deity stand in terms of gender and sexuality?
Rain is the nurturing and visionary power of femininity, as well as the joy that comes from connections between family and friends. Her femininity is that of the houseparent, the person who chooses family over work, peace over hostility, hospitality over xenophobia, whose home and arms are always open. The childcare worker, the schoolteacher, the mentor – all those who seek to nurture wonder and help others develop themselves, who have a vision and inspire others to enact it.
All of the Powers of Waincraft fall along a multisexual spectrum, and Rain is no exception. She is the very power of connection between people – love, family, friendship, community – and her sexual expression reflects this. Though her primary mythic relationships are with Sky and her sisters, she is freely loving to all, joining with Sun to create rainbows and clouds, or with Earth to water the seeds and roots, or with Wind and Ocean in a whirling, swirling dangerously beautiful typhoon or hurricane, as just a few examples.

What quality or qualities of this god do you most admire? What quality or qualities of them do you find the most troubling?
I love her dedication to helping others find and become their best, as well as her joy and wonder for the world and her love of beauty and innocence.

Art that reminds you of this deity














Music that makes you think of this deity
Rain, Brian Crain
Rainbow Eyes, Blackmore’s Night
Rainbow Blues, Blackmore’s Night
O Vox Prophetica, O Quam Tristis
Rain Dance, Adiemus
Song of the Plains, Adiemus
Little April Shower, Bambi OST
Cloud Code, Meredith Monk
Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows), Karl Jenkins
Palus Nebularum (Marsh of Clouds), Karl Jenkins
Friends in My Heart, Shimomura Youko
Dearly Beloved, Shimomura Youko
It’s in the Rain, Enya
How Can I Keep From Singing?, Enya
Cloud Woman, Lisa Thiel and Ani Williams
Rain Dance, Krys Mach
Remembering an old friend, Luo Tian Ping
Clouds, Luo Tian Ping
Somewhere over the Rainbow, Judy Garland
In the Rain, Joe Hisaishi
Family, Joe Hisaishi
The Sea of Cloud under the Moonlight, Joe Hisaishi
Sometimes When It Rains, Secret Garden
Lore of the Loom, Secret Garden
Hello Young Lovers, Marni Nixon
Song of the Sibyl, Dead Can Dance
Raindrops on the Windshield, Orphic Endeavors
Maid with the Flaxen Hair, Richard Stoltzman
With a Few Good Friends, Carly Simon
In the Rowans, Balmorhea
A Piece of Eight, Children of Eden OST
Stranger to the Rain, Children of Eden OST
Castle on a Cloud, Les Misérables OST
Connection, Miten & Deva Pramal
Old Friends, Howard Shore
Good Friend, Libana
Dreaming Wild White Horses, Hagalaz’ Runedance
Frigga’s Web, Hagalaz’ Runedance
On Wings of Rapture (Visions of Skuld), Hagalaz’ Runedance
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, B.J. Thomas
Singing in the Rain, Gene Kelly

A quote, a poem, or piece of writing that you think this deity resonates strongly with
I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity. – Eleanor Roosevelt

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible . . . what we must always foresee is the unforeseen.” – Victor Hugo

“The more boundless your vision, the more real you are.” – Deepak Chopra

“Every child needs a champion.” – Hillary Rodham Clinton

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.” – William Blake

“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” – Franz Kafka

“When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call “white” is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.” – Diane Ackerman

“Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.” – Paulo Coelho

“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” – Roger Miller

“If I were rain,
That joins sky and earth that otherwise never touch,
Could I join two hearts as well?” – Tite Kubo

“The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing—a blanket—the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water.” – Douglas Coupland

“Valentine Weather
Kiss me with rain on your eyelashes,
come on, let us sway together,
under the trees, and to hell with thunder.” – Edwin Morgan

“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.” – Marvin J. Ashton

“Each moment is a poetic expression of the undefined. As long as it remains undefined, it has all the beauty of the world and it steps inside to nurture your dreams.” – Grigoris Deoudis

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” – Herman Melville

“I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap.” – Ani DiFranco

“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.” – Jean Vanier

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.” – Richard Bach

“I may not always be with you
But when we’re far apart
Remember you will be with me
Right inside my heart” – Marc Wambolt

Any suggestions for others just starting to learn about this deity?
Help harvest crops, connect with family/loved ones, learn divination or oracular work, care for or form a relationship with a horse, bake bread from grain to loaf, mediate a dispute, dance in the rain, watch clouds for visions, practice vocal magic (particularly songs), nurture your inner child, play, experience wonder, spend time with children.

Getting to Know the Powers: Blood

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©2013 RebeccaJoseph

A basic introduction of the deity
Blood is the second and middle of the Weird Sisters, born of a triple union among Night, Wildness and Abundance, and containing within herself all the light and darkness and conflicting polarities of her parents. As such, she is both a power of destruction, chaos, and death, and a power of restoration, rebirth, and protection. Blood is everything we fear and revile – war, chaos, bloodshed, strife, death, destruction, abuse of power. But she is also the one that teaches us how to overcome those very things, the reminder that while we cannot change the past, we can change in the present to alter the future. She teaches us to conquer, to rise again from the ashes, to never give up and never give in. In her, all things return again as they were given, both good and ill. She is as unchanging and ever-changing and ageless as the Present, for it is the present that she rules over, that moment of Now which is as transmutable and slippery as sand through the fingers – the tighter and harder you grasp at it, the faster it is gone.

Symbols and icons of this deity
Loom and plaiting needles, swans, corvids, weapons, magical tools, bag of golden sand, corvid or swan feathers, gold or gold pieces, measuring scales, claws, blood

A favorite myth or myths of this deity
The Weird Sisters
The story has been told of how the world was created – of Night’s love, and her twin consorts, and the four elemental twin-pairs. But the world ran wild, without purpose or pattern, in exuberance and fecundity overreaching the limits of possibility. And the Mother saw this in her Knowing, and realized that something would need to be done to reign in the excesses of creation, and to guide her children along the path. And so, she took a hair from her head, and twisted it into thread, so long that only she, in her vastness and Knowing, could see both the beginning and end of it.
And she took the thread, and wove it about herself, and lay with the Wild One, looking back towards the beginning of all things, and in time, bore a daughter, child of darkness and cold and magic, and this daughter picked up the beginning of the thread, and began to spin all the stories of the past into a spool. And this was the Keeper of the Past, who looks into the well of the Underworld and gathers all the memory of the dead.
The Mother took up the thread again, and wove the middle section about herself, and faced the present moment. And this time, she took to herself both twins, the Light and the Dark, Wildness and Abundance, and bore a daughter of both their seed, child of dark and light mixed. And this daughter saw all that lay around, and how it played into the greater pattern, and picked up the spool that her sister had spun, and began ply the yarn and set the warp. And this is the Keeper of the Present, who looks at the middle world and sets the pattern on what is and has been, keeper of the golden sands of time.
And yet a third, and final time, the Mother took up the thread again, and wove the end about herself, and lay with the Keeper of Time, looking forward to the unknown. And she bore of him a third daughter, bright and fair and with far-seeing eyes. And this daughter looked to the sky, and saw the unfolding of the pattern in the clouds, and took up the plied thread, and with shuttle in hand, began to weave the weft of what she had seen. And this shall be the Keeper of the Future, who looks beyond-the-horizon, and dreams what the pattern may yet be.
And so the limits of time were set, and the pattern made manifest, and the Sisters spin and weave the lives and places of all.

Members of the family – genealogical connections
Mother – Night
Fathers – Wildness and Abundance
Siblings – Divine Twins, Winter, Rain, Earth, Sky, Water
Consorts – Wildness, Abundance
Children – none

Other related deities and entities associated with this deity
Winter
Rain
Earth
Death
Passion

Names and epithets
Battle-Crow, Lady of Slaughter, Golden Woman, Glorious Queen, Battle-Armed, Battle-Sacrifice, Gold-Drunk, Mother of Battle, Shrieker, Queen of the Banshees, Fury, Lady of Swans, Lady of Ravens, Battle-Witch, Mistress of the Twisting, Lady of the Sacrifice, Lady of Blood, Mother of Pain, Alloter of Ills, War-Lusting, She Who Delights in Battle, Lady of Chance, Mother of Grief
Gullveig, Gieldwíg, Heid, Baduhenna, Catubodua, Badb Catha, Złota Baba, Nemain, Hervör Alvitr, Andraste, Enyo, Bellona, Verðandi and Kārta are all Euro-American deities and spirits that can potentially work in this slot, for those pursuing specific cultures and mythologies.
A non-Euro-American deity that works is Agasaya. Non-Euro-American deities that are similar, but with multiple distinct differences, are Anat and Kali.
A Euro-American (Finnish) deity that works but should probably not be used due to oppression/appropriation issues is Vammatar.

Variations on this deity (aspects, regional forms, etc.)
Blood has three main aspects, as well as her combined role as Fate with her sisters: the Bloody Crow, the Golden Woman, and the Bringer of Strife
The Bloody Crow is the face of Death that Blood embodies – Death-the-Exultant, Death-as-Eater, the death that delights in bloodshed and carnage, that revels in war and sacrifice of living creatures. This is the Power of the carrion-eaters, the scavengers, the ravens and vultures and other animals that feast on the dead and dying. She is the collector of tears.
The Golden Woman is the giver of treasure and the receiver of sacrifices. She holds the powers of fire and rebirth, of prophesy and destiny. She is a powerful magician, just as her sisters are, though her talents lie in the realm of conflict, fate-weaving and what was known to the Norse as seiðr – an ecstatic form of magic involving such things as cord and thread, spinning/weaving fate or wyrd, chants and other vocal spells and charms, and which was very often sexual in nature. She is also, in this aspect, the power of reciprocity – that which was given is given in turn, that which was taken is taken back again, and so the connections between all things are strengthened. This aspect is the most like her second father, Abundance
The Bringer of Strife is the power that laughs in battle, that rejoices in conflict, that destroys for the sake of itself, that burns everything to the ground and salts the earth. This is the most malevolent aspect of Blood, as she is something we utterly fear, the joy and mad ecstasy of death and destruction. She is the queen of the battle-maidens, the melter of courage, the weakener of resolve, and while she can be called upon to afflict your enemies, she can also turn on you as well in the blink of an eye as it pleases her. She carries famine and deprivation, loss and ruin in her wake. This aspect is the most like her first father, Wildness
The fourth major aspect of Blood is her role as Watcher of the Weird Sisters. She plies the thread of the past into the yarn that is used to set the warp of the loom weaving the Great Pattern. She sees all that currently is, and her hands touch everything that exists in the present, marking them for destruction or exaltation at her whim.
In all her forms, she appears to me with pitch-black hair, blood-red lips and blood-stained claws, sharp teeth and sharper eyes, and skin the color of pure gold, or dark as night. She adorns with gold and feathers, and usually carries a spear in one hand, and a bag of sand or distaff in the other.

Common mistakes about this deity
Blood is also not the Power of Death in Waincraft, though she does represent one of the “types” or faces of death
She is not strictly a war goddess, though war can and does fall under her influence. Instead, she is a power of strife, conflict, chaos, sacrifice and blood, all of which are a part of war as well as other things.

Festivals, days, and times sacred to this deity
Festival of the Dead
Festival of Reciprocity
Blood Moon
Crow Moon
Twilight

Any mundane practices that are associated with this deity?
Weaving
Plying/Plaiting thread
Fighting
Voluntary simplicity/deprivation
Dancing
Martial arts

How does this deity relate to other gods and other pantheons?
Destroyer/Fate

How does this deity stand in terms of gender and sexuality?
Blood is the wild abandon of feminine power that is feared and denigrated by insecure or controlling masculinity. She is the patriarchal nightmare of the devouring, destroying woman incarnate.
All of the Powers of Waincraft fall along a multisexual spectrum, and Blood is no exception. She has minimal long-term relationships with the other Powers beyond her sisters, but much of her magic and power comes from her freely distributed sexuality to any and all. She has many similarities in this to Passion, but her charms are bloodier and wilder.

What quality or qualities of this god do you most admire? What quality or qualities of them do you find the most troubling?
I admire her resolve, her determination, her ability to completely remake herself after being destroyed, and her ability to teach us to do the same.
At the same time, of all the Powers, she represents some of the most unsavory and undesirable aspects of existence – pain and suffering, carnage and slaughter, chaos and malevolence and deprivation. She is not a Power to be called on lightly, or to be dismissed out of hand.

Art that reminds you of this deity



http://heroicevolution.com/storage/Morrigan.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1313017672762













http://journeyingtothegoddess.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/227922_10150204577251962_574766961_7622502_5996794_n1.jpg?w=220&h=545


Music that makes you think of this deity
The Three Ravens, The Hare and the Moon
The Raven, Omnia
Raven Night, Hagalaz’ Runedance
Morrigna, Dagda
Morrigan, Omnia
Morrigan, Trobar De Morte
Call to the Battle, Fenris Kindir
Warrior, Beth Quist
Love of War, Joe Hisaishi
Mars, the Bringer of War, Gustav Holst
Bloody Pleasures, Blutengel
Miser, Corvus Corax
Lacus Doloris (Lake of Grief), Karl Jenkins
So Sweet… The Tears, Autumn Tears
Blood Tears, Blind Guardian
In Our Tears, Secret Garden

A quote, a poem, or piece of writing that you think this deity resonates strongly with
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood. – William Shakespeare
Blood alone moves the wheels of history. – Martin Luther
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Thomas Paine
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. – Plato
It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity. – Horace
All war is deception. – Sun Tzu
All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood. – Rainer Maria Rilke
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself. – Walter Anderson

Any suggestions for others just starting to learn about this deity?
Help an abuse victim, rescue animals, learn defensive magic or martial arts, mentor someone, reduce clutter and superfluity in your life, sacrifice unnecessary possessions or self-defeating attitudes, contemplate the importance of sacrifice and reciprocity, learn to accept that all things must end, learn to start over after failure.