Northern Knighting

1. Breaking Stone


Can't remember where we are, maybe a quarry, outside. We are a few people. I have a rock in my hands. The sun shines. I have to wait long and become impatient. I break the rock by thought, it splits, and again and again and again. I don't know how I do it, but it works.

+ Before this but the same dream. I am in a big hall, training hall, lots of people of different teams have gathered, quite busy. Dark. Badminton tournament. I am in a corner talking to people, or maybe someone in particular, that I haven't spoken with in a long time, it must be Elbr. But other people I know and admire me are there along with me, they just come along. Such a person comes and tells me that someone wants to see me, it is Gu from badminton. I already know he wants to play with me, which I think it great, but for he moment this has priority.
Then at last I go to the middle of the court and am ready to meet Gu, but then he does not want to anymore. I see him, but he takes off. He had to wait too long. I don't care.


2. Initiation

At home, parents. I'm in the living room, brother N is there. On the side table is an apple, I take a piece and eat it. Then, Fras, who is in the house, tells me to get ready for the initiation. She will knight me. I make ready. She has a china plate, like for a cup of tea, on which lies something, but I have to gather the other things, among which a piece of apple. She goes about her business somewhere else in the house. My brother sits in the chair where my mother uses to sit. I go to the side table for another piece of apple. There are two big apples, but they are yellow and mellow, and I touch them, but I don't want them, because they are too ripe. But then I see the apple which I started a moment ago, and take the knife and cut the best parts from it, which is not much anymore. I save two parts, and remove the core, with which I have problems. But this will do anyway. The apple was cut over half to begin with.
Then I go to my room, for reasons I can't remember. But I must have slept or fallen asleep, because at some point the radio goes on to wake me, and it is Sunday and I realize I am already too late. It is 10am, and before the initiation I wanted to teach my class like always. But if I leave now, I will be late, because at this time the lesson would start. I hurry anyway, thinking about how long it would take me to get there on my bicycle. In my hast, I fail to switch off the radio. I try and try, but nothing works. I squat by the machine and look at the back of it, but I don't find the button to switch it off. I am losing a lot of time here, time that I don't have. The music keeps playing. So I unplug the radio, but it still keeps playing. Then I start to remove things from it, but it still keeps going. That is when I think, it doesn't matter, I can go anyway, someone else will shut it down. And I go.
I also see cassettes lying about the room, this was all in my old bedroom. These were the cassettes on which I taped the pathworkings.
So I go. In the kitchen I tell my father he might want to look at the radio and try to switch it off. In the meanwhile it is 10.24am and I am late. I am desperate of going to class. This is a disaster. It is the last lesson, I can't abandon the students now. But still I cannot leave. 
Now I am outside, by the garage, terrace. And while we wait, I suppose my father will bring us. My brother is with me. We are both outside. And I try to rehearse the opening circle for the rite, which would probably first be chanting the runes. This we can do while circambulating. Possibly the rite will take place in this very spot and we can mark a circle on the floor with chalk and write the names of the gods in it. I already try to guess or think about the quarter beings. This is what I come up with: Nidhogg in the north, because his name begins with an N. This is the only certain one, the rest follows naturally, because of this attribution. So, I think, east must be (I can't remember, but it should start with A), south will be Sunna, and west will be Urd or Urd-Nornir, although I have to think about it a long time. It doesn't chant easily, the name Urd. I'm also thinking the Norns can go in three quarters.
Then, I start to improvise and rehearse the calling of the quarters and I am thinking either a quarter circle or a whole circle for chanting the name of the quarter. But we start with Nidhogg and we dance around the circle several times, not chanting, but clawing. We make claws with our hands like a Chinese martial arts hand for dragon, and go clockwise. At the end Fras sees us doing this, and I am slightly embarrassed by my childishness.
We go back inside. I don't think I'll be going to class at this point, so there is time in the morning still and we are suddenly well on time, that means, we don't have to hurry, the rite can take place at noon spot on. I have to remember to ask my brother to keep the exact time. I tell him when we are in the garage. Both the exact starting moment, I tell him, from the moment Fras starts to do anything. And also to record the end moment, which I will signal, but I don't yet know how, maybe by saying something. And he tells me he will keep the time to the second. I don't need that much, but of course it is very good. I need this for astrological reasons. This was on my mind the whole time.
Back inside, we are in the kitchen, idling, because now there is too much time. Fras comes in from the dining room and suggest we can do the poetry first to fill the time, I tell her that is a good idea. I  forgot about this. So now I have to read poetry first.
I also have to look for a sword for the ceremony, my brothers will be surprised if they see that I have this.
The poetry is like reading in the ceremony of a wedding, pictures will be taken in the same way, and the whole thing feels a bit like a wedding.
At some point my father says we have to leave, because we want to be on time, the rite will be at the very place where I give class, outside, on the gravel. My mother is certainly here too, D too.

3. In the Feasting Hall

We drive through the city. At last we come to the venue, which is like a pub, or primitive restaurant. Maybe Stwi and Phpa are here, good friends of Fras.
The place inside is big, we go sit in the middle. The tables are arranged in a U. Food is served or will be served.
Anyway, just a moment later other people enter and sit down. There is now a group to the right. And another group joins on the left, this group is noisy and shaggy, people with long hair smoking weed and stuff. Bikers so to speak. They celebrate something, maybe also a marriage. In the corner, dark, bar is in their neighbourhood. This is not fun.
My brother N is on my right, we still stand. I tell him, look, the person who is celebrated gets cigarettes as a present, how low can you go. He sees it. I tell him a second time, because my brother didn't answer the first time. The cigarettes are wrapped in red paper, a paper bag. They seem like a merry lot.

+4. Zlani

We are at a family party I think, abroad. Me and my brothers, standing at a table. There is a girl there. She is from Hungary or some place else in Eastern Europe. A certain word is said that only she can pronounce correctly: zlani. Must be with a thick l, and with a strange z sound. 

(32 minutes of writing)