The layer of blood caked over my whole

naked body is cracking.

This is it.

The initiation into the next cycle of my life.

A cycle without blood.

This is significant.

I stand in front of the fire

after sailing down the river of blood,

my blood,

in the long boat with Hela.

She spins as I stand.

Spiralling with her

black cloak billowing,

as she calls up the animals

of Niflheim and the Otherworlds.

She dresses me in fox fur

and wolf skin around my shoulders,

placing the head of a fox on my head.

I smell of fox.I smell of wolf.

I smell of stale, cracked blood.

Hela is half skull, half goddess face.

It is right that she should be my guide.

I stare at her beautifully terrifying eyes

and understand that I am staring at myself.

She laughs as she places a human skull

in my left hand, the thigh bone

of a warrior in my right.

They are heavy. My shoulder aches.

It is hot in front of the fire

and under the fur I itch.

I long to jump into that river

of blood, fast moving, fast flowing.

Instead I am forced to stand here,

itching and uncomfortable.

This is my initiation.

The animals descend upon us led by Garmr:

the eagle, the bear, the raven, the magpie,

the stag, the whale, the badger,

the boar, the spider, the fox

and many, many wolves.

The forest is thick with wolves howling,

they are celebrating.

They have come to lick the blood

from my body.

I am howling with them.

This is my true nature. My wolf self.

I am entering the cycle of the wolf

on a wolf moon in a super blood eclipse.

The initiation is complete. I am licked clean.

I taste the wolf spit, it is strong.

I have howled a whole life time.

I have howled the loss of my blood.

I have howled the loss of my father,

my son, my mother, my sister.

I have howled the loss of a husband,

before gaining another.

I have howled in the dark

with the beasts of shame and exhaustion.

I have howled in ecstasy many times over,

with a multitude of lovers.

I have howled on the rocks

where the mountains meet the sea.

I have howled in the eye of the storm.

I realise I shall keep howling

but this time the cry will be different.

For the blood is gone.