Ever since the new Pipe awoke and the old Pipe went to sleep … I’ve felt a bit off.

Not bad or like I was walking in the wrong direction, but more like I was walking in the right direction … just hadn’t quite found the trail yet.

It was like having all the pieces of the puzzle and just not seeing how they fit together yet.

So I decided to simply be.

To walk and see where my feet were taking me.

It came to feel like the view was slightly out of focus.

Just slightly off.

During these past few months, I found I was really good at my job working on a psych ward at the local state run hospital.

But again … Slightly out of focus, just slightly off.

As a result, I began trying to listen to the silence around me and observe the flow of energy and life as it ebbed and flowed.

At work, I was good at what I did yet the flow of things continued to feel out of focus.

Spiritually, it was the same.

I bounced back and forth between Norse and Gaelic / Celtic …. Gaelic / Celtic and Norse … rinse and repeat.

Let me at this point stop to say thank you to a friend who will know who they are when they read this …

Thank you for always listening as I thought my way through things and helping to keep me sane during these past months.

It helped me keep my feet walking in the right direction while preserving my own sanity.

The first thing to come into focus was work.

Turns out events in life caused me to stumble across a job listing for a similar position but at another local community hospital.

It’s a smaller unit that offered the same type of care, but in a manner that helped patients without constantly putting staff in harm’s way.

At the state hospital, I’d watched as we lost nurses from our unit.

They left because they’d gone too long with feelings of being overworked, unheard, unappreciated and not protected.

One was punched so hard, she received a concussion yet was made to return to work a day later before the concussion had the chance to heal.

Another had fingers bent back so far they were sprained — a little more and they’d have been broken.

During the week the job opening crossed my path, I remember seeing on two separate occasions staff from another unit being carried out on gurneys by paramedics.

Also had a couple of the nurses talk about the difference in the working environment at our state facility verses a psych ward at many of the local hospitals.

So, I decided to submit my application, scored an interview and received a job offer.

They matched my salary expectations within their 36-hour work week (over three days) vs. the 44-hour work week at the state facility.

Overall, I’ve been working at the new job for a few weeks now … still feel like a stranger in a strange land but its a better experience.

The challenge of the moment is their way of doing things are different in that I have to take the same skills and present them slightly differently.

Getting there, however, and enjoying it.

And I’m still helping those with mental illness and behavioral health problems.

It will also has given more free time which allows me to get back out in the world EXPLORING … new places, trying new things and exploring new avenues.

I feel a part of the world again as I did before the state job.

I feel like I can spiritually spread my wings again … beyond work and home.

Which brings me back to bouncing back and forth between Norse and Gaelic and Gaelic and Norse.

Truth is somewhere in the middle.

Many of what I work with are different Spirits related to the same things.

Freyja is passion and believing in one’s self while reaching for those things we dream of.

She has been teaching me ways of weaving threads of Wyrd (ie. fate) and Awen (energy of life & universe) forms of magic that lead to alternate paths and different outcomes.

Becoming the person we want to be.

Brigid is healing, creation … hearth and home … and the magic woven through songs, stories, arts and wherever a creative spirit can shape and work its magical forces.

She is more than that, but I’m honestly still trying to find the words.

Then there is Aine who is the rays of light that shines through the clouds, the warmth of the sun, love, passion, sovereignty and so much more.

Artemis who is not just a huntress, protector of the wild things but a spirit of the moon.

And the antlered goddess who has come to me many times and guided through dreams that become mists, signs that are like tracks the soil of the forest and who has taught me to find and follow trails through the spiritual realms … trails and trackways both ancient and new.

Is this Artemis? …. Flidais who is the Irish goddess of the forests and wild places? … or Elen of the Ways?

Or is it more than one?

I do feel I see Artemis when I look to the moon, but I’m also seeing Flidais when I walk in the wild places of the forests and in the deer who visit where I live … a herd at a time.

Question is … Is she the one teaching me to find and follow the trails and pathways or is it Elen of the Ways?

Then I stepped back and realized that like my Norse ancestors who moved from Norway to Scotland and Wales.

They embraced the ways of their new home while bringing Norse traditions with them.

It became a mix that became something new.

I am a child of a people who for better or worse moved to the Americas.

And although they brought who they are with them, we cannot ignore the teachings of this land on which we now stand.

And in a time when so many of the old ways have been forgotten, we have to take teachings that work and speak to us …. take those ways and see if they can help us reach the spiritual destinations and pathways our peoples forgot … in new ways that speak to us in the here and now, the land on which we stand and the spirits who are willing and seek to help us.

And with this, I realized I’d been trying to hide who I am behind a name obscured in old and foreign languages instead of in a language that I speak every day and that those around me would understand.

Example … “Haukyrr Vegvisyr” … Hauk Vegvisyr … Hauk the Pathfinder” … and / or … “Hauk Pathfinder.”

All them translate to the same thing … “The Hawk Pathfinder” … or simply … “Hawk Pathfinder.”

So, I accepted this and accepted that this is my true spirit name.

And as soon as I did, the Maelstrom Pipe which had gone to sleep suddenly woke up and was ready to be smoked in prayer and ceremony once more.

It had wanted me to find myself first.

The lesson here? … Accept who you are and BE who you are without fear as you cheat yourself and others … and are walking out of step and off your path if you do not.

I am a mental health worker and a Shaman.

I am also a photojournalist and weaver of stories … through words and images.

And you can call me the Hawk Pathfinder or simply Hawk Pathfinder.

And did I tell you that yes …. Dragons ARE real? … They are creatures of legend and spirit …. as well as Guardians of the elemental forces of creation.

Be who you are, and who you are meant to be.

Do so without fear.