© Sacred Hoop Magazine 2021

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Nicholas Breeze Wood and the Sacred Hoop Team

This is a text only version of Sacred Hoop - the full version of the issue - with all the images - is available as a pdf and also as a printed paper magazine from our website www.sacredhoop.org

THE FOUNDING INSPIRATION FOR SACRED HOOP MAGAZINE IN 1993

“Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and around and about me was the whole hoop of the world... I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit and the shapes of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the Sacred Hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight and in the centre grew one almighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father, and I saw that it was holy .”

(From the vision of Nicholas Black Elk Lakota Holy Man: 1863 - 1950)

EDITOR, DESIGN AND PRODUCTION: Nicholas Breeze Wood

FOUNDING EDITOR Faith Nolton

PROOF READING: Linda Booth Martin Wilford

CONTACT DETAILS: Sacred Hoop Magazine Anghorfa, Abercych, Boncath, Pembrokeshire, SA37 0EZ, UK Email: Nick@sacredhoop.org Tel: (01239) 682 029 www.sacredhoop.org

PUBLISHING POLICY: SACRED HOOP seeks to network those wanting to learn the spiritual teachings of indigenous peoples as a living path of knowledge. Our contents cover the integration of both old and new ways, and insights that contribute to a balanced and sustainable lifestyle in today's world. We honour all paths and peoples and do not include material from, or give support to, any individual or group which seeks to oppress or discriminate on grounds of race, lineage, age, gender, class or belief. Nor do we knowingly publish any material that is inaccurate. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the editor.

ISSN 1364 - 2219

DISCLAIMER: Whilst making every effort to be accurate, the editors will not be deemed responsible for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies appearing in Sacred Hoop Magazine.

© Sacred Hoop Magazine and-or individual contributors. No part of this magazine, either written text or visual art, may be reproduced in any way whatsoever without the written permission of the Editor.

CONTENTS

IN SEARCH OF THE SHINING ONES

From Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to Santa’s toy makers, Elves are part of our culture, but they have an ancient history. Nicholas Breeze Wood explores their world.

A LAND OF DRAGONS AND ELVES

Britain has long been a place of magic and mystery. Professor Brian Bates looks at some of the factors that coloured the landscape, in the minds of the Anglo-Saxon peoples.

REVERENCE FOR THE ROCKS

Settled by the Norse in the Dark Ages, the people of Iceland have retained a powerful sacred connection with their Island. José M. Tirado explains some of these connections.

YOU’RE GOING TO THINK I’M WEIRD

The word weird is a common English word, but wyrd, its root word has a powerful sacred meaning. Matthew Appleton shows us how being wyrd is a natural and good way to live.

THE LORDS OF THE EARTH

In Norse, Mongolian and Tibetan traditions, the world is divided up into areas reigned over by ‘Earth lords,’ who are like dukes or barons, each responsible for their own areas.

A THING ON A STRING

In Thailand the penis is a major symbol, and penis-shaped amulets are worn, and penis-shaped food is consumed. David Gamble-Moore shares his own personal penis-journey.

THE INITIATORY SHAMANIC SICKNESS

In all shamanic traditions, a shaman-to-be will go through some form of psycho-spiritual crisis, often called ‘shaman-sickness.’ Jez Hughes looks at this, in relation to mental health.

SEEKING THE LEGEND OF YOU

With teachings from a Hungarian shaman, Ivan Szendro has found a way to bring myths and legends from his homeland into a form of potent healing work that empowers people.

CLIMBING THE SKY-HIGH TREE

Traces of shamanism can still be found in Hungary, and the folklore of the country is rich in shamanistic elements. We look at some of these, and how shamanism came to this part of Europe.

REMEMBERING HANK WESSELMAN

Elder and shamanic teacher Hank Wesselman died earlier this year. Richard Parker pays tribute, and reflects on his life, his passing and his legacy.

MAGIC AND THE QUANTUM SELF

Creativity and imagination are important aspects of the human psyche, and can also lead to a more connected, richer awareness of life. Elizabeth E. Meacham looks at their relevance.

A HEALING AT WAPITI

When seeking a site to do vision quests from Mark Miller discovers the story behind a double murder and the death of the murderer, and sets out to do a ceremony for all three souls.

BOOK AND MUSIC REVIEWS

PEOPLE ON THE PATH EVENTS DIARY

EDITORIAL

Sacred Hoop is a ‘Spirit-led’ affair. A female spirit - a dakini - appeared in a vivid dream a few years before the first issue came out, and literally plopped the whole thing into my hands; and since then it has been a sacred activity far more than a commercial one.

Part of the way this Spirit-led nature manifests, is in trusting the process - which isn’t always easy to be honest - both in the finances and the articles that come in; and there is magic and ‘serendipity’ in both of those. With the articles, I never really plan an issue, but often articles will come in, which all come together to make a theme. This issue is a prime example of that process.

The Land Spirits of Europe wanted to come in very strongly this time, and articles manifested and clustered together. It has been a delightful issue to make ready, and has flowed smoothly, like quicksilver. We have tales of Iceland and Anglo-Saxon Britain, and Hungary too, We have the Norse gods and goddesses, and dragons; and above all we have the Álfar - the Elves. I have been researching Elves for the past year or two, thinking sometime it would be a nice idea to do an article about them, but suddenly, this was the issue, and I was aware of their urgency, their strong desire to come forward; and so, here they are. The issue is also bigger, to enable a reprint of an article by Professor Brian Bates, first published in Sacred Hoop back in 2004, as it seemed such a good fit.

All of this activity happened during the COP26 talks in Scotland, and I really began to understand there was a connection. The land spirits seemed to want to be heard, we need to know about them.  And then I came across a quote from a Buryat Mongol shaman which seemed to sum things up so well: “If you ignore these signs you get sick, but if you don’t know the signs how will you know what is wrong?’ The knowledge had been lost. Once you know, you can see it... and people have a centre that they can turn to for help and information. We have to educate people...”

So, this has been a very powerful issue to put together, quite a ride, and I hope you enjoy reading it. I am writing this editorial on the eve of the full moon in Blótmónaþ - the old name for November - the traditional time for making an Álfablót - an offering ceremony to the Álfar; and so, tomorrow, on the day of the full moon, and also a lunar eclipse, I will perform such a blót - a simple offering ceremony - to feed the land spirits, so that they are remembered. May we all remember them in our own ways as we walk upon the sacred earth during these difficult times.

Blessings to all Beings

Nicholas Breeze Wood

IN SEARCH OF THE SHINING ONES

Nicholas Breeze Wood

The Magic of Norse and Anglo-Saxon Elf Lore

Elves, or at least our perception of them, have come a long way in the last two thousand years or so. From powerful magical beings - whom people were careful around because of the harm they could cause - to Disneyfied, hard-working, yet comical, characters, who make toys for good children in Santa’s workshops somewhere up near the North Pole. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It has only been in recent years, mostly thanks to a greater awareness of Norse mythology, and through the works of Tolkien and others, that we have started to stop seeing them as enchanting cute little spirits: akin to the way ferocious angels became cute, podgy, winged, toddler-like cupids. But, even with this more recent Tolkienesq redemption, for many people, Elves are still beings who are confined to a childhood world of fairytales; so perhaps it is time we took a closer look at them.

The origin of the word Elf is very ancient and comes from the Proto-Indo-European word albho which meant white, brightness or shining. Elves then are ‘the Shining Ones,’ or ‘the Bright Ones.’ They are a race of spirit beings, heavily associated with magic, whose services can be called upon by magicians in order to curse or heal, but who can also curse or heal under their own volition. We get the English word Elf from their Norse name Álfar, which became Aelfe in Anglo-Saxon, which turned to Elf over the centuries in modern English. There are many places in England associated with Elves, just as Brian Bates in his article in this issue points out English place names associated with dragons. Such places include Elveden in West Suffolk; Eldon Hill in Derbyshire; Elvendon Farm in Oxfordshire; Elf Hall in Cumbria and Elf Hills in Northumberland.

In Iceland Elves are still known as Álfar, but sometimes called Huldufolk - hidden folk - although this is a less exact term, as other spirit beings, such as trolls, are also classed as Huldufolk. In Wales they are called Ellyllon, while in Irish Gaelic the word Aos Sí perhaps comes closest, and in Scots Gaelic the word Sith. The difference between Elves and Fairies seems to be a cultural one in many ways, Celtic cultures tend to think of these beings as Fairies, and Germanic cultures tend to think of them as Elves. Of course, the words we use for all these beings have been adapted and changed over the centuries, so it is hard to follow the threads back to their original source. For example, the word ‘Fairy’ has its roots in the Latin word fatum which means fate or destiny. This word came to English via medieval French, as it was introduced to the English language after the Norman conquest of Britain in 1066. And of course the Welsh, Irish and Scottish languages all have their own names for Fairies and the ‘Hidden Folk’ too, and often have a very rich classification of different types. The study of the ancient spirit beings of Europe is a complicated one, and could easily fill a lifetime; and for it, ideally one would be a fairly skilled academic - with a knowledge of languages - so as to navigate its complex labyrinthine nature.

THE RACE OF THE ÁLFAR

According to ancient Germanic mythology, the Álfar race came to be when the Gods created the world; and in Norse mythology one of the Nine Worlds - connected by the world tree Yggdrasil - belongs to them. This is Álfheimr, which is also called Ljósálfheimr, and this can be translated as ‘Elf-land’ in modern English. According to Norse traditions the Álfar were divided up into Ljossalfar - Light Elves; and Dokkalfar - Dark Elves. The Light Elves mostly live in Álfheimr, and are said to be as radiant as the sun; but the Dark Elves are more closely connected to our Middle Earth, and it is them that this article is more focused upon in many ways. The Dark Elves are considered to be mound dwellers, which means they live in hills under the surface of the earth, or to be more specific, they live in ancient burial mounds. This is something I will come back to later on in more detail.

In Norse and Anglo Saxon understanding, both Light and Dark Elves are human in form, with their physicality varying from solid to ephemeral, depending on the encounter. They are amoral, mercurial beings, beautiful to look at, but often deadly in their actions. They are often said to be quite androgynous in appearance, but as they are in human form, they can breed with humans. Indeed, many of the early accounts say that the Álfar are only male - or at least that female Elves are very rare - and to propagate their race they must breed with mortal women. In legends and sagas, many heros, kings and princes are considered half Álfar, or can trace their bloodline back to an Elf.

In later accounts however, the view of Elves seems to have changed, and there is more mention of females of their kind. But this does not reduce their ability to breed with humans, such as in the C10th account of Ragnar, son of Sigurd, king of Sweden and Denmark. Ragnar was said to have been especially tall and handsome because his mother, Alfhild, was one of the Álfar. The physically seductive nature of the Álfar is found in both sexes in these later accounts, and female Álfar were often associated with nymphs and angels. Particularly beautiful human women were also often called, or described as being Álfar, or Álfar-like.

Their sexual contact with humans can also be in the form of incubi and succubi. These are spirits who become dream lovers to humans, incubi are male spirits who visit women, and succubi are female spirits who visit men. Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, written in the late 1380s draws upon old traditions of Álfar incubi in his tale of ‘The Wife of Bath,’ which starts with him comparing Christian friars - who seduce women and create dishonour; to Álfar incubi, whose seductions always lead to pregnancy. Not only do the Álfar come to mortal humans for sexual adventures at night, they are also said to cause nightmares and sleep paralysis by ‘riding’ a person and tormenting them in their sleep. A German expression concerning nightmares is ‘ein alp zoumet dich’ which translates as ‘an elf has put a horse's bridle on you.’ In medieval Europe there were many spoken charms and prayers against this; here is one example from C14th Germany:

‘Elf, or also little elf, You shall remain no longer. Elf's sister and father, You shall go out over the gate; Elf's mother, drude and mære, You shall go out to the roof-ridge. Let the mære not oppress me, Let the drude not pinch me, Let the mære not ride me, Let the mære not mount me. Elf with your crooked nose, I forbid you to blow on people.’ A mære is spirit who brings horrible dreams - as in the modern word nightmare; a drude is a kind of malevolent nocturnal elf, also associated with bad dreams.

The hybrid offspring of Álfar-human encounters are sometimes seen as changelings, where an Elf - often an adult Elf in the guise of a baby - was exchanged for a human child. But the cross-breeding is also said to take place if an Álfar appears as a physical being and has regular sexual contact with a human; as in the tale of Skuld, a Danish princess. Skuld’s father, King Helgi, let in a ragged woman on a midwinter night, who transformed into a radiantly beautiful Álfar woman dressed in a silk gown. She told Helgi he had freed her from a curse and he asked her to marry him. She refused, but slept with the king anyway, and told him they would have a child, and to visit the child the next winter at a place the Álfar woman specified. But that next year, King Helgi forgot to go. Three years later, the Álfar woman came to his court with a girl and left the child at his door. The Álfar woman told Helgi that the child's name was Skuld, which means ‘What you should do,’ and she added that the King would gain reward for breaking her curse, but that the King's people would suffer because the King had not done as she had asked after they had slept together.

Although I have been unable to find any mythological reference to it, I also think it is possible that the spirit of an Álfar can, in some way, come into a human woman at the time of a child’s conception, and overshadow the mortal child, or use the body of the child as a home for its spirit, rather than as a vessel for a human spirit. I think this is especially possible if the child is conceived in a wild place associated with Álfar, such as out in nature amongst rocks, and close to ancient burial mounds.

There are however accounts of the Álfar being friendly and helpful to human mothers. I have an Icelandic friend whose family has a history of Álfar midwives coming to help at births; and she related family stories to me of mortal and Álfar children playing together, out in the Icelandic wilds. She shared these stories to me as facts, with no sense of fiction or embellishment; it was just her family history, tales of life on a remote farm in the North of Iceland.

The Álfar are said to be especially active during the times of the two Solstices, Midwinter and Midsummer. At these times, they are said to ride out in full procession. Sometimes this riding out is seen as giving a blessing to the lands they pass through, but in Iceland the Midwinter ride of the Álfar, the Álfarieth, is said to be extremely dangerous to encounter. Midwinter Icelandic folklore is full of dangers, as various Huldufolk are said to ‘come out and play.’ These include the thirteen Jólasveinar, who are trolls, Grýla their mother, who is a giant ogre, and Jólakötturinn their pet cat, a monstrous beast. These beings - all of whom have a taste for human flesh and dark trickery - are said to come out and stalk the land 1 .

HUMAN - ÁLFAR RELATIONS

Elves and humans often do not have the easiest of relationships. Seductive, manipulative spirits, full of trickery, the Álfar may exact revenge for an insult or slight given to them, often killing the person, or giving severe bad luck, or driving them mad. They can however, give a blessing or respond favourably to anyone of good manners who praises and pleases them. These lucky people may receive gifts - either physical ones, such as food or drink, or gold, or sometimes apparently worthless things like leaves, which are said to often turn to gold later on - or a heightened ability to be creative in one of the arts. If the Álfar offer a gift, it should not be refused, whatever it is.

They are said to be especially angered by human activity which disturbs places that are special to them. These places include ancient burial mounds, special rocks or trees, cliffs and rock faces, caves and other natural elements of the landscape. Environmental damage therefore can have dire consequences for its human perpetrators. Some people say disturbing the Álfar with the construction of roads or buildings, in places where they live, will result in bad luck; and in Iceland and other Nordic cultures there are accounts of construction machines continually breaking down. Sometimes, when this happens, a person known to be able to communicate with the Álfar will be brought in to negotiate with them.

Folktales sometimes recount how an Elf can enter a house through a small hole, such as a knothole in wood. This idea is reinforced in many ancient folk traditions around the world which assigns particular importance to small holes, such as knotholes, and stones with holes in, or even magical rings, which when looked through enables one to have a sight of the Hidden People. If they do get in through a knothole, or any other entry point, they are said to sometimes tangle peoples hair. In English these tangles are known as Elf-locks, and in German they are called alpzopf or elfklatte. Shakespeare mentions this ancient tradition in Romeo and Juliet, when talking of Queen Mab the fairies' midwife:

‘She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman ... ... This is that very Mab That plaits the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes.’

The German folklorist Jacob Ludwig Grimm - one of the famous Grimms Brothers - wrote in his 1883 book ‘Teutonic Mythology’ that in German traditions the Álfar are associated with the goddess Holle. Holle is a very ancient goddess, said to predate all the Norse gods and goddesses such as Freyja and Óðinn, and as a goddess she created weaving and was also responsible for the souls of all dead children. She has survived in German traditions under the name ‘Dunkle Großmutter’ - the ‘Dark Grandmother’ - and is now often part of yule-time traditions. Grimm suggests that the Álfar travel in her retinue, in her service and that they bless people with her gifts. Those brave enough to enter the realm of the Álfar often report that time moves at a different rate there, so what seems like a short time spent with them turns out to be a longer time in Middle Earth. And of course, sometimes the Álfar never release mortals who go to their realm, and those people are never seen again. The Álfar can be called upon to protect a new born baby, although if I was the parent of such a child I might want to think twice about doing that.

They are also said to offer their healing - or cursing gifts - if properly petitioned. Here is a C14th Icelandic curse, calling upon the Álfar and other Huldufolk to do nasty things to someone: May Trolls, Witches, Álfar, Haugbúar and Mountain Giants, Burn your halls. Frost-þursar despise you. Horses bugger you. The straws sting you, And gales drive you mad. May woe befall you, unless you do my will.

Haugbúar are burial mound-dwellers, and a þursar is a Norse and Anglo-Saxon word for a demon.

THE ÁLFAR AND THE DEAD

A strong connection between the Álfar and the dead has been known for a long time. Traces of this connection can be found throughout mythology; for example, in the Saga of Saint Olaf, where the Norwegian king Olaf Gudrodsson would later be known as Olaf Geirstad-Álf. In the saga, at his death Olaf was placed into a mound, and people made offerings to his spirit for prosperity, calling him Olaf Geirstad- Álf. This is an example both of ancestor worship and of relating to the noble dead as Álfar.

There is a particularly strong connection in Norse belief between the Dokkalfar - the Dark Elves - and the human ancestral dead. For example, the Norse term Álfkarl was translated into Irish as Alcaille, which has now turned to the Irish Gaelic word Aos Sí. The term Aos sí means ‘people of the mounds,’ the mounds being the sídhe, the burial mounds found scattered all over Ireland, which are known as barrows in England. It seems that some noble human dead were said to become members of the Álfar and ‘lived on’ in their burial mounds. It is probable that these noble dead were all male, as the word Álfar is masculine, and we know that in early mythology the Álfar were considered to be entirely, or nearly entirely male. In later folklore and stories however, there are accounts of female Álfar, and also we have evidence in later periods that women were also buried in the mounds, which connects them to the mound dead and the Dokkalfar.

But we should not assume that just because some of the Álfar are the human dead, all the Álfar must be. Instead it seems that the boundary between humans and the Álfar is porous, and just as the Álfar can father human children, some adult humans can become Álfar upon their death. This is why burial mounds, the English barrow; the Irish sídhe; the Welsh gwyddfa, and all the names for these ancient sites, are connected with and sacred to the Álfar.

ELFSHOT AND ÁLFAR MAGIC

The Álfar are able to inflict illness and strife on both humans and cattle, in many ways, but perhaps the most well known method is through alf- shot or elf-blast. Elf-shot are said to be small, invisible arrows that create physical pains and diseases such as bone cancer and arthritis; and elf-blast is when the Álfar breath or blow sickness onto someone, creating fever, nightmares, delusions and madness. Anglo-Saxon medical texts refer to a condition called aelfsogetha, which seems to be something like bronchitis, and also to aelfsidenn, which literally means elf-enchantment, which manifested as a night fever or nightmares. In these texts there is also cure given for waeteraelfaedle - water-elf sickness - they symptoms of which are given as discoloured nails, watering eyes and downcast looks. In Scotland an attack by the Álfar is called elf-grippit, and cases of rural people believing in it were recorded right into the C20th, and possibly beyond. In Germany, the word for an Álfar attack is albshoss, which is a paralysing or killing fit, brought on by the touch of the Álfar. A person affected by the Álfar is in the state of elbentrotsch.

Protection against being affected by the Álfar varied from spells and prayers, to herbal mixtures, to amulets and other physical means. One C11th English manuscript suggests a combination of spoken spell and herbal mix, which is as follows:

‘Feverfew and the red nettle, That grows through the corn, And plantain too, boil in butter. Loud, they were, yes, loud, When they rode, Over the burial mound. They were fierce when they Rode across the land. Shield yourself now, You can survive this strife. Out little spear, If there is one here within. It stood under The lime-wood shield, Under a light shield, Where those mighty women marshalled their powers, They sent shrieking spears. And I will send another back.’

Another remedy is the placing of an iron knife into blessed liquid, and then placing it upon the pain, so as to draw the pain out into the knife. Very similar methods can be found today in various shamanic traditions, as in Nepal, where the use of an iron knife in healing is a well established method.

Physical protection against the Álfar took several forms. For personal wear, elf-stones or elf-arrows were worn as amulets around the neck. Elf-stones are small crystals or polished precious stones set into metal, often gold, worn as protection amulets. Elf-Arrows are neolithic arrow heads made of stone, which have been found - perhaps near, or in an ancient burial mound - which when worn protect the wearer from molestation by the Álfar; a sort of sympathetic magic where the weapons of the Álfar are turned back against them. Iron has always been considered to be a good means of defence against spirits too, and the nailing in of iron nails has long been a form of protection. This is where the custom of hanging up a horse-shoe - now mostly reduced to silvery-coloured lumps of plastic on wedding greetings cards - comes from. The colour red is also seen as powerfully protective in many cultures, and has entered folklore all over the planet. In Pembrokeshire, in West Wales, where I live, it is traditional to paint doors and window frames red, so as to keep all the different spirits that go to make up the Tylwyth Teg - the Hidden folk - out of the house.

Álfar magic was known as Áelfesiden or Alfseidhr, and siden or seidhr are the same word as seiðr, the Norse shamanic-like magical practice that has become popular again in recent years. Siden means ‘a strong magic.’ Áelfesiden is both the magic the Álfar do on their own account - such as against a person in the form of elf-shot - or a magic which a human encourages the Álfar to perform for them as a service. One C12th cleric complaining about witchcraft in a sermon states: ‘some send Elves, and some send snakes; some send nikeres which dwell by the water.’ A nikere is an Anglo-Saxon word for a water demon, and I strongly suspect it has proto-European - Sanskrit - roots, and is, in effect, the same word as naga, the water spirits of India and the Himalayas.

Here is one example of an Áelfesiden spell, called the ‘Valkyrie stick’ from late C14th Norway goes:

‘I carve remedy runes, I carve protection runes, Once over by Álfar, Twice over by trõll magic-workers, Thrice over by þursar By the harmful skag-valkyrja, So that you may have No power of action... ... I send to you, I chant on you, A she-wolf’s lust and restlessness. May restlessness come over you, And a Jõtunn’s fury. Never sit, never sleep.

A Jõtunn is a being - most often considered a giant - who comes from Jötunheimr, one of the Nine Worlds that are gathered around the world tree Yggdrasil.

The connection between Áelfesiden and seiðr goes deeper than just the component word siden however, as the Álfar are said to possess people, and spirit possession is one of the key factors of seiðr. It is very possible that the original spirit-beings worked with by völvas - female practitioners of seiðr - would have been, or at least would have included, the Álfar; especially as there are many references to Álfar possession of humans, both in benevolent and malign ways.

There is a specific word for possession by the Álfar in Anglo-Saxon: ylfig, and the word had both negative and positive connotations. The word ylfig has come down to us today in modern English as the word ‘giddy.’ A positive form of ylfig would be when someone was possessed by the Álfar in order for the Álfar to speak through that person to give information or prophecy. this would have been a form of seiðr - Áelfesiden - Álfar seiðr. When the possession was a negative one however, it was more akin to a demonic overshadowing, and the poor sufferer was in need of a treatment of some sort, probably an exorcism. The symptoms for Álfar -possession according to Anglo-Saxon sources are fevers, nightmares, and madness, described as a marked change in personality, an increase of nervousness and anxiety, or other significant behavioural changes. In Pre-Christian Britain there were no doubt specific exorcism rituals to rid someone of the Álfar, but as Christianity developed and became more popular, we find the word Álfar simply being added to the list of demons in the existing Latin rites of exorcism.

Álfar can be driven out of an area by planting an alfreka in the ground. An alfreka is a type of magical pole which has a curse, or magical warning attached to it. In Norse they were called níðstang or nidstang, which roughly translates as ‘scorn pole.’ Often these poles would have a horse’s head on the top and a flayed horses skin draped over it, but other things are also used, such as fish heads. Alfreka could be used intentionally to bring a curse on an area, or person, by angering the Álfar there and encouraging their wrath so that it would impact specific targets. The Álfar can also be repelled from an area by people urinating, which explains the ban on urinating in sacred sites in Iceland refered to in the article by José M. Tirado in this issue of Sacred Hoop. In fact the Anglo-Saxon word alfreka has a double meaning, it also means to urinate or relieve oneself.

As mentioned above, iron drives away the Álfar, and so knives, or more often nails would be hammered into a post, or doorway to make the home an Álfar-free zone. Certain plants which give protection were also encouraged to grow, including rowan and juniper, and a balm or ointment made from woody nightshade, wild orchid and tree sap could be employed as well. As Christianity became more dominant, the ringing of church bells was said to drive off the Álfar, as were Christian prayers, although probably this ‘driving away’ was less a magical protection, and more a response of the Álfar to a religion that offended them. FEEDING THE ÁLFAR Of course, you might not want to take a strict ‘No Álfar Welcome Here’ approach, and might want to have an attitude of live-and-let-live. If you do, you might want to make offerings to the Álfar, much as you might to other spirit beings.

Traditionally an offering to the Álfar is called an Álfablót; a blót being a ritual offering given on the land, and the term originally referred to a blood offering. The word blót has now been denigrated by centuries of Christianity, and the term, still in use in English, has come to mean ‘an eyesore’ an ugly mess; we talk about something being a ‘blot on the landscape.’ Blóts were performed at different times of the year, and for different reasons, but it would seem from early written accounts that the Álfablót - the blót to the Álfar - was carried out at the gates of winter, on the day of the full moon of November, which in Anglo-Saxon times was called Blótmónaþ - blood month. An anonymous English account, written shortly after the Norman Conquest, runs: Se mónaþ is nemned on Léden Novembris, and on úre geþeóde blótmónaþ, forðon úre yldran, ðá hý hæðene waéron, on ðam mónþe hý bleóton á, ðæt is, ðæt hý betæhton and benémdon hyra deófolgyldum ða neát ða ðe hý woldon syllan. Or to put it in modern English: ‘The month is named in Latin Novembris, and in our speech blótmonth 2 , because our forefathers - when they were heathens - always blóted in this month; that is, that they took and devoted to their idols the cattle which they wished to offer.’

The Álfablót was a private family ceremony, and foreigners and strangers were not allowed; whereas many other blóts were large, community affiars. In the medieval Icelandic Austrfararvísur - a poetic saga - the hero Sighvatr and his companions arrived at a homestead that is doing an Álfablót. They expect to be given hospitality, but the door remains tight shut, and the people inside say the place is holy. Sighvatr goes on to the next farm where me meets a lady who told him to go away because she was performing an Álfablót and they were not welcome.

The Álfablót was both a blót to the Álfar and the ancestors, which again shows the relationship between the two groups of spirits. They were often rather bloody affairs, in the C10th Icelandic Kormak's Saga, a man called Thorvald is injured and advised to seek out a spákonufelli for healing: ‘The spákonufelli answered, there is a hill, not far away from here, where the Álfar dwell. Get a bull and redden the outer side of the hill with its blood, and make a feast for the Álfar with its flesh. Then you will be healed.’ A spákonufelli, or spae-woman, is another name for a völva. The hill mentioned in the saga was almost certainly an ancient grave mound. It seems that Álfablót have carried on until quite recently in some places; there is a 1909 Norwegian account of a man whose family sacrificed a cow to 'the mound dwellers' when his father died. This again shows a connection between the dead and the Álfar.

I would not recommend you sacrifice a bull and turn your local hill red, on the full moon in November - or at any other time - but if you wish to do your own version of a simple Álfablót, at any time of the year which feels appropriate, it is in essences, not that different from offerings you might already make for the ancestors and local land spirits. I would recommend honey, mixed with warm milk - the warmth helps the honey dissolve - butter, or cream would also be good, together with bread, small cakes, fruit, beer or wine, and possibly - in keeping with the original meaning of Blótmónaþ - blood moon - a little raw, or cooked meat if you so wish. These offerings need to be placed outside, and the original tradition of blót often employed a special stone called an álfur-steinn - Elf- stone. This was a stone or boulder - often bowl-shaped - on which the offerings were placed. However, I think you need to follow your own feelings and practical considerations about finding an álfur-steinn, if it is possible, then great; and if it is not, then improvise. Personally, I have a rock in my garden, over which I have been pouring offerings for several years, and from now on I shall think of it as the Elf-stone.

When you make the Álfablót, you need to do so respectfully and lovingly, you really do not want to antagonise the Álfar or the ancestors, and as with all ceremonies where you invite spirits to come, it is always good to add the caveat ‘those who love me,’ when you do the invitation; as not all spirits - be they Álfar, ancestors, or anything else - will love you. Although the full moon of blood-month maybe the traditional time to do an Álfablót, it is not the only time you can do them, and you might wish to celebrate the year with them perhaps on the solstices or at other times - i am sure the Álfar won’t mind being given an offering, and being shown respect at any point in the year. At this time of huge ecological crisis, I think it is important to remember the Hidden-folk, the land spirits and the ancestors. We need to get in good relationship with them. So perhaps you might wish to perform an Álfablót as an opportunity to give thanks and make prayers, for yourself, your family, your community, your land and all your relations.

Nicholas Breeze Wood is the editor of Sacred Hoop Magazine. www.NicholasBreezeWood.me

NOTES: 1: for an excellent and entertaining BBC radio programme about the Icelandic Dark Christmas traditions listen to ‘Iceland's Dark Lullabies’ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jcnpr The programme is available worldwide.

2: The Anglo-Saxons divided the year into twelve - or sometimes thirteen - lunar months. • January was known as Æftera Geola - ‘after Yule.’ • February was Sölmönatþ - ‘the month of cakes,’ when sacred cake offerings were made to ask the spirits for a good harvest to come. • March was Hrëðmonaþ. Hreða was a fertility goddess whose name eventually became Lide. The name Lidemonth was still used in parts of southwest England until as recently as the C19th. • April was Eostremonaþ, taking its name from the fertility goddess Eostre. • May was Thrimilce - ‘the month of three milkings,’ so called because cattle were could be milked three times a day due to abundant grass for them to eat. • June and July were joined together and known as Liða, which means ‘mild’ or ‘gentle,’ the period of warm summer weather. However, to differentiate between them, June was sometimes known as Ærraliða, - ‘before-mild,’ and July was known as Æfteraliða - ‘after-mild.’ Because the lunar year has thirteen moons - months - leap months were added periodically during Liða, and these were known as Thriliða - ‘third-mild.’ • August was Weodmonaþ - ‘plant month.’ • September was Häligmonaþ - ‘holy month.’ This was the harvest season, so ceremonies were held to help encourage a good harvest, with fair weather for it. • October was Winterfylleþ - ‘winter full moon.’ Winter was said to begin on the first full moon in October. • November was Blótmónaþ - ‘the month of blóts, blood sacrifices.’ • December was Ærra Geola - ‘the month before Yule.’

A LAND OF DRAGONS AND ELVES

The Middle Earth of Anglo-Saxon Britain

Brian Bates

To the ancestors of the people of Europe, the gods and goddesses lived in the bright spaces of the Upperworld, along with the light elves. Far beneath, in the cavernous shadows of the Lowerworld, lurked the spirits of the dead; they were accompanied by dark elves and the dragon called Nidhog. And in between, reached by a bridge formed of a rainbow called Bifrost (Trembling Pathway), lay the enchanted landscape of Middle-earth. It was a magical realm inhabited by men and women, and surrounded by an infinite ocean. In the ocean swam a serpent so huge he encircled all of Middle-earth and bit on his own tail. In the mountains bordering the ocean lived the giants. This landscape of three realms, one above the other, is how the peoples of historical north-west Europe saw their world during the first millennium, that early period sometimes called the Dark Ages. The natural landscape of Europe took on a whole new meaning - a deeper, enchanted dimension, making it a realm of magic and mystery. These were the people of the real Middle-earth.

Until recently, historians tended to regard the tribes of the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Norse as primitive, violent and obscure barbarians, living in the shadows of the more widely-documented Romans. We now realise that at their best, these ancient civilisations were characterised by some remarkable perspectives on the nature of reality. For them, a life force enchanted everything. Beserker warriors were believed to change into bears, and heroes journeyed on perilous quests for truth in the land of the giants. Their cosmos was held together by an interlaced web of golden threads, visible only to the wizards. The early communities were bonded together by shared rituals and customs particular to each, such as calendar festivals, hunting practices, techniques of magic, and by totems and icons which symbolised the spirit of the tribe. Dialects, details of costume and shared stories about heroic figures, were as important to their identity then, as they are today in badges and branding subcultures in our less homogeneous contemporary social worlds. In England, in particular, the different tribal traditions came together like ingredients in an alchemical cauldron, a microcosm of what happened at various levels of intensity elsewhere.

The smallness of Britain as an island meant that when new ethnic groups settled, they mixed with, or dominated, earlier settlers. This mixture of traditions conjured such a rich blend of magic, and eventually inspired Tolkien to write ‘Lord the Rings’ as an attempt to invent a legendary story which captured this essence of ancient England. While their many tribal cultures were rich and varied in comparison with the twenty-first century, their commonalties were strong. Totalling perhaps two or three million people at the start of the period, they lived in a natural landscape, an un-engineered world of trees, streams, hills and wooden dwellings. Although the culture was quite simple technologically, these were no airy-fairy day-dreamers. These were ancestors of the north-west European heritage.

Travelling back in time only a hundred generations or so, we arrive at the beginnings of this remarkable civilisation. These forebears now have hundreds of millions of descendants, and inter-breeding with later tribal incomers means that everyone of north-west European heritage living today - anywhere in the world - has one of these peoples in their early family tree; the magical world of Middle-earth runs in our veins. The people ascribed to the natural world a palpable energy they called life force. This worldview, inhabited by elves and other natural presences associated with water, wells, plants and the heavenly galaxies, used to be grouped by modern anthropologists as primitive ‘vitalism.’ This patronised the indigenous cultures’ awareness of sentient consciousness within all aspects of nature. With more recent research in a wide range of disciplines we can now see that in Middle-earth, the enchanted landscape incorporated attitudes to health and healing that are only just re-emerging in the medical practices of today. Of course today the notion of dragons being real seems a fanciful idea, more appropriate to childhood - our contemporary process of ‘growing up’ requires that we gradually fetter our fantasies and replace them with an adult perspective, relentlessly based on concrete reality.

So were the Anglo-Saxons child-like dreamers? On the contrary, they had to be intensely practical, for times were hard. Unreliable crops could lead to sudden famine, disease could rage through villages, and lawless feuding of rival warlords flare up without warning. Was their belief that dragons were real a sign of primitive thought, a groping for order amongst the chaos of quixotic and cruel events? After all, our distinction today between reality and fantasy, defines the boundaries between sanity and madness. Could it be that the people of those times lived in a kind of collective delusional world? This conventional interpretation of Middle-earth magical thinking misses an important ingredient. For what distinguished their civilisation was that beyond the pragmatics of survival, the meaning of life lay in another, separate kind of reality. The practical matters of everyday life were best solved through common sense and logic; but answers to what life is about lay not in rational thinking., but in the realms of imagination.

The people of Middle-earth lived in constant awareness of the presence of dragons. This terrifying creature’s hidden realm was the Lowerworld, a place reserved for the spirits of the dead. Dragons’ lairs, as entrances to the Land of the Dead, were supercharged points of contact between the everyday, surface world and the timeless, subterranean layers of the Lowerworld. The lairs were located in caves, burial mounds, cross-roads and streams. And there, in the deepest darkness, lurked the dragons - like fireballs waiting to explode. In the real landscape of ancient England hundreds of ‘dragon-lairs’ were mapped meticulously, like ancient minefields. The nature and naming of dragons’ lairs illustrates how the people interacted with the natural landscape not only with concrete practicality, but with threads of imagination cast over the world around them like a magical net. These pulled together the hills, trees, streams and hollows, within the deeper dimensions of inner experience. Tolkien used this perspective in ‘The Hobbit,’ when the dwarf, Thorin, pored over an ancient map to plan a safe route.

Today, 1,000 years later, we can still visit the original location of some of the most famous dragon lairs of the real Middle-earth. They can be identified through ancient place-names, many of which have survived through a thousand years of history. Beneath their prosaic presence on a modern map of England lies the hidden terrain through which dragons dragged their scaly hides.

By the end of the eighth century, most of the villages in England had already been formed. Many still survive today with their original names, or close derivations, or can be identified in early forms in ancient land charters, or the Doomsday Book. These place names suggest that hundreds of sites may have originally been identified as dragon-lairs. Flying dragons were known as a ‘drakes’, and their presence is marked by many place names, such as Drakeholes in Nottinghamshire, Drakes Broughton, in Worcestershire, and Drakelow, South of Birmingham. Slithering, wingless dragons who crawled over the landscape, were known as ‘worms’, deriving from the Scandinavian, ‘orm’, which means snake. Place names for their lairs include Wormwood in the Peak District, and South Ormsby in Lincolnshire. Many ancient cultures have had a similar sensitivity to dragon lairs in the landscape. In feng shui, the Chinese geomantic system which studies the currents of subtle energy within the land, ‘dragon veins’ run throughout the landscape and in this system every part of the land is animated by ‘dragon’s breath’.

For the people of the historical Middle-earth, the dragon was not a totally negative creature. A fearsome beast, yes - but one whose presence fired the landscape with magical power, and who embodied the fate of whole civilisations. The dragon was the guardian of time, the custodian of each aeon - the natural time span in which a civilisation rises, prises its wealth from the ground, falls, and eventually returns it there. The peoples of the real Middle-earth had a conception of time different from our own. They did not believe in linear, unfolding time, but rather they experienced time as a constant. History - the past - was always with them in their daily lives, affecting the present in a never-ending cycle. The past and future coiled around the present like the image of the Norse World Serpent - the biggest dragon of all - chewing on its own tail, its body never ending.

In this first millennium world, the handling of wealth through gifts, largesse, tribute and dowry, was a delicate and elaborate issue. Treasure, reflected in the traditional hoard of gold and jewels that a dragon guarded and slept on, was central in the mind of Middle-earth. For wealth in this material sense reflected a deeper dimension of success. A person’s degree of wealth or success was a result of their luck, personal charisma, or mana. Such ‘treasure’ reflected a fundamental characteristic of life, rather like fertility; the Anglo-Saxon terms eadig and saelig mean both lucky and rich, and wealth is taken as a token of that quality on which the gods shower their blessings. But the dragon’s hoard, as a sign of the people’s luck, carried deep responsibilities for the Anglo-Saxons. If people behaved badly, then the dragon would become enraged.But if the people lived in accordance with the wishes of Mother Earth, and the precepts of the dragon and its treasure, then they were destined to thrive.

In the real Middle-earth people went about their daily activities with an awareness of elves as Otherworld beings who ghosted in and out of their lives like wraiths of pure life force. They seemed to emanate from familiar features of the landscape - woods, streams, rocks and fields - and also lived in human-built burial mounds. These aspects of the environment took on an ‘elf-presence’ imbuing them with a kind of consciousness. And while elves may have been difficult to see in the normal run of daily events, they were much more than a vague association of ‘spirit’ with landscape. They were beings with a vivid identity, imagined as creatures in human-like form.

Elf belief goes back to very ancient times. In fact the term ‘elves’ was widely used among ancient Germanic peoples when referring to spirits in general, and it may have served for a cover-all term for Otherworldly creatures. The elves were often described as beautiful. It was a considerable complement for a woman for her appearance to be compared with an elf. Elf beauty was more than mere physical attractiveness. It was of an iridescent quality - a radiant, pale brightness. This glow is reflected in the Anglo-Saxon word Áelf, which connects with the Latin word albus meaning ‘white and shining’. In historical Middle-earth people perceived elves as possessing special qualities of mind. King Alfred, the first Saxon king to rule over the whole country of England, had the word aelf or elf as the first element in his name: ‘Aelf-red’ means ‘possessing the wisdom of an elf.’ This sort of wisdom extends further than book learning, it is more than worldly information. It seems to have had connotations with what we could call supernatural wisdom - uncanny knowledge, extending beyond the five senses.

So where were these bright, beautiful and wise creatures in the original Middle-earth? Were they visible perched on rocks, or flitting between trees? And how did people communicate with them? The medieval Danish writer, Saxo, reports in his ‘History of the Danes’ (written in 1182-1210) that in the ancient Norse culture, in order to see a being of the Otherworld, you had to go to a ‘gifted person’. In all cultures, through all times, ‘gifted people’ are believed to be chosen by the spirits to serve the community as mediators between the everyday material world, and the world of spirit. These are often people who, early in their life, have experienced powerful dreams which seem prophetic, or have had visions that others could not see. Sometimes they go through an initiatory illness which seems to mark a ‘death’ of their human self. They are thus ‘reborn’ with the ability to have one foot in the mundane human world, and the other foot in the unseen Otherworlds.

In western parlance, before the recent adoption of the word ‘shaman,’ they were called ‘wizards.’ In Anglo-Saxon the term was wicce, which referred to both witches and wizards. They were the Gandalfs of the real Middle-earth and the villages of Anglo-Saxon England had such people - men and women who could glimpse the spirits. Under the direction of one of these ‘gifted people,’ reports Saxo, one had to prepare one’s eyes by ‘hallowing’ them. This was in order not only to see the supernatural being, but also to be safe in its presence. Saxo explains that these gifted people would then help the ordinary mortal to glimpse the spirits by a guided form of viewing to: ‘Bring your gaze nearer and look through my arm akimbo.’ This suggests that the wizard stood upright, with hands on hips, elbows sticking out to the sides. A person seeking a glimpse of these Otherworld beings crouched down and looked through the space between the arms and the body of the wizard. If a person successfully petitioned a wizard for such a special vision, what would they have seen? When they were glimpsed, reports Saxo, the Otherworld creatures would appear as ‘apparitions marked by a false pallor whose momentary corporeal substance was borrowed from insubstantial air.’

The country landscape of Britain today swells with small hills, rises and knolls. Many are natural, but some are man-made mounds, earth heaped over a burial site. I once found myself sitting on one such in Sussex, in South Eastern England, a short distance north of the town of Lewes, reputed to be an elf-mound. It had, as far as I knew, no history as a burial site, but its natural features were evocative. Grass-covered, still warm from the afternoon sun, it whispered timeless tales as the wind ruffled its secrets. In Middle-earth times the elves were often associated with these places. There they were left offerings of milk and meat, and people asked them for help in overcoming difficulties or illness. This process, called ‘blót’, was a magical request, rather than a bribe, or payment for services rendered. Sometimes there were larger community ceremonies where people could gather to show their respect, and even love for them.

In Sweden an annual offering was made to the elves, in the interests of future harvests. It was called alfablót - literally ‘sacrifice to the elves,’ and this phrase makes clear the sort of relationship people sought to have with them. Elves were not remote greater powers, but rather they were spirits with whom people wanted to be friends. On another afternoon, sitting on the burial mound of King Redwald at Sutton Hoo, site of the famous treasure hoard, I felt uneasy. A light mist began to creep up from the river. If the Anglii - the tribal people of this site - had been there, they would probably have felt that Redwald’s spirit could still be contacted on this mound. We know that these people assumed continuing spirit and have accounts of their going to burial mounds and leaving offerings, in order to converse with the spirits of the dead. Ordinary people could seek these consultations with ancestors.

One of the Icelandic sagas tells the story of a shepherd called Hallbjorn. He sought inspiration for his poetry by sitting - and then even sleeping - on the mound where the poet Thorlief was buried. To contact Thorlief’s spirit he started to compose a poem in his honour. But Hallbjorn was overwhelmed by the emotion of what he was trying to achieve, and found it impossible to complete his task. One night, as Hallbjorn slept on the mound, he dreamed that the figure of a person came out of the mound and showed him how to compose such a poem. As he wakened, he thought he glimpsed a figure re-entering the mound. As a result of this ‘dream,’ the poem he wrote was a successful one - as indeed was all the poetry he wrote after that.

As a psychologist, I do of course value the advantages of 21st century science, engineering and medicine, and some would say that such a fantastical culture as that of ancient England is irrelevant to the imperatives of contemporary life. But sophistication comes in many forms. What I find so important and such a revelation is that Middle-earth, both Tolkien’s fantasy and the real historical culture, sweep us away on seemingly essential journeys into our own imaginations. We are at a deep level familiar with all the ingredients of these peoples’ imagined world. Concepts such as ‘life force’, for instance, feature hugely in fantasy books and film entertainment like Star Wars. Our hunger for it is so all-embracing that we hardly note its strangeness.

But we should be aware of the implications of the fact that in the western world we spend literally billions of dollars each year on ‘leisure time’ stories which re-connect us with the sense that there is a dimension beyond pragmatic parameters of the material world. It is in this place of myth that, while being absorbed by the vivid stories and visions, we encounter deep, timeless elements of our psyche. And now, a thousand years after that era closed, Middle-earth is returning. The huge interest in fantasy literature and films inspired by those times show that it never really left our minds. It just lay fallow until it was needed again. And now is perhaps when we most need to recognise that beyond the bounty of our rational, scientific, engineered society, the voices of fantasy, intuition and imagination may yield some deeper perspectives which could help us better understand our place in the world.

Brian Bates is the world’s foremost expert on the psychology of spiritual life in ancient Anglo-Saxon England, and its applications for today. His work focuses on reconstructing this way of wisdom and applying it to issues which concern people in their personal, social, work and spiritual lives. Educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and Cambridge University, England, he worked in Behavioural Sciences at Stanford Research Institute. He is the author of the novel ‘The Way of Wyrd’ and two factual books about Anglo-Saxon spirituality; ‘The Real Middle Earth’ and ‘The Wisdom Of The Wyrd.’

This article was first published in Sacred Hoop Magazine Issue 44 - 2004

REVERENCE FOR THE ROCKS

The Viking settlers of Iceland left a lasting legacy of respect for the sacred island that is still strong today

José M. Tirado

When Iceland was first settled sometime between 870-930 CE - the accumulated risks of travelling to it over rough seas - and the relative isolation of the island in the middle of the north Atlantic - probably fostered; and heightened the importance of a deeply held sacred reverence for nature. The landscape was rugged yet inviting, both rich and forbidding. The Landnámabók - ‘The Book of Settlements;’ a medieval Icelandic book that describes in great detail the settling of Iceland by the Norse - describes worship at waterfalls, caves and sacred hills, into which souls passed at death. Historic records show that in tenth century Iceland, the landvættir 1 - land-wights, or earth-spirits - had fields left sacred to them. The extinct volcano of Helgafell, which is on a small island off the coast of the Stórhöfði Peninsula, on Iceland’s West Coast, was so sacred, that no one was allowed to look at it unwashed. In addition, sacred places in the landscape were marked by hill-figures, sacred poles, cairns and labyrinths. Cairns were built where important offering ceremonies - known as blóts - were celebrated. On these sacred lands, no person should urinate, no fetid smell should be made and no living thing destroyed.

This sense of Iceland being a sacred land has remained, and is partly reflected by the inner lives of present day Icelanders. Of course later - around the year 1000 CE - there was an acceptance of Christianity on the island, albeit with both serious caveats and not a little resistance. The pagan, and some might say animistic faithfulness to an environment regarded as magical, remained strong; despite the Church´s best efforts. The historian Valerie Flint, in her 1991 book ‘The rise of magic in early Medieval Europe’ discusses the Christian distrust of this; the most characteristic trait of Icelandic religiosity; namely a deep respect for the land and the spirits of the land. In her book, she writes: ‘One of the most familiar of all complaints about persistent non-Christian practices - a complaint found widely in the sermons and legislation of the period - is that which deplores the reverence still displayed toward stones, and trees and fountains....’ The Church’s attempt to erase the deep connection to the land was no easy feat, as reverence for the land was expressed early, and with great seriousness.

It was the Norwegians who first settled Iceland as a way of escaping political unrest at home. Some of those early settlers were Christian, but the organisation of the island was done in a pagan manner, and this pagan structure required the ritual sanctifying of the land, such as the setting up of temples and of regular attendance at assemblies, held to make the offerings: the blóts. In addition to this sense of a close relationship with nature - and with it a widespread acknowledgement of nature’s dynamic, otherworldly properties - the Norwegians also brought their more formal religious beliefs with them. These included the Norse goddesses and gods, deities who had their origins in the wider Germanic culture. These goddesses and gods were divided up into two ‘tribes’ or families, the Æsir and the Vanir 2 . The Vanir include the gods Njord and Freyr, and the goddess Freyja. Many of the Vanir are nature deities, responsible for fertility and other aspects of nature. For example, Njord is the god of the winds and the waters, while his son Freyr is a god of the harvest, and his daughter Freyja is associated with fertility.

Around the year 1000, Iceland voted to replace the old pagan beliefs with Christianity, and a tolerant - at least to begin with - Christian faith displaced the old Norse religion and its practices. The initial resistance to Christianity ebbed over the years, but the latter´s suspicion of women healers and of pagan practices long established in Iceland, served to maintain a distrust of this adopted faith, at least at an unconscious level 3 .

But, despite the distrust, the Church held power. There was a mandatory registration into it - at a child’s birth - until only around 30 years or so ago, despite regular church attendance - along with the numbers of people who openly declare an allegiance to the church decreasing reapidly.

The very early Icelandic Church even attempted to ban some everyday things, such as the weaving of cloth; a practice that is now - along with knitting - still taught and widely encouraged. This was in part because weaving could be associated with knot magic - ligaturas - plaits and bindings used for magical purposes, which were part of Norse traditions. In addition, the capacity to weave was associated with the concept of wyrd, and knot magic - in the form of curses and charms - was therefore connected to the binding of a person’s fate. Knitting is now a required primary school subject and it remains a popular hobby to this day. The Church then, did not eliminate knotting, or the ethos of an individualised spirituality informed by nature and the environment.

Another aspect of traditional Icelandic society, one which remains influential, is the relationship between men and women. This relationship may have been affected by earlier traditions, as Norse society seems to have been a comparatively egalitarian place for women - compared to many cultures of the time - one in which women could own and administer their own property. In the medieval sagas, women are often described as independent agents, rather than simply junior members of someone else's household. This egalitarianism can perhaps be seen manifesting within the tradition of seiðr. Seiðr is a practice in which trance-like states are induced, in order to foretell future events. Traditionally it was associated with women, and especially associated with the goddess Freyja, who was the first teacher of seiðr.

A practitioner of seiðr is a seiðkona [female] or a seiðmaðr [male], but nowadays they are mostly better know by the term völva, which in old Norse means ‘wand carrier,’ or ‘carrier of a magical staff.’ Óðinn - the father of the gods - practised seiðr himself, learning it directly from Freyja. but despite that, although not barred from the tradition, men who practised seiðr were regarded as ergi, a word which suggests disgust or distaste, and was widely understood to suggest they were feminised, whether in character - such as the wearing of women's´ clothes - or behaviour - such as homosexual passivity.

Although seiðr is often nowadays thought only to be a trance-induced form of prophecy, it also had its magical applications, apparently including the raising of corpses and ‘hag-riding’ or making night time visits to unfortunate people, in order to give them terrible nightmares. To this day, similar practices to seiðr - often known as andleg-mál - take place, In these, Icelanders consult with mediums to seek advice, or attempt to connect with lost loved ones.

All of these conditions - an appreciation of nature, the relative equality of women within society, and a reticence towards the Church - have given Iceland an interesting set of conditions from which a revival of its earlier religious traditions could naturally be fostered. As a part of the general revival of pagan ideas and a growing environmental consciousness, there has been a reformation, and reformulation, of heathen and pagan beliefs on Iceland; and this has led to a more formal interest in such practices. In 1973, the organisation Ásatrú - Allegiance to the Æsir - was officially recognised as an established religion, with the right to conduct legally binding weddings and child namings. Its members include high-ranking business people and diplomats.

Along with the revival of the old Norse traditions, there is a growing interest in other forms of informal spirituality in Iceland, things which could be described as ‘ecstatic’ or, quasi-shamanic. For example, the growing popularity of entheogenic excursions, allowing personal experiences with ayahuasca, or mushrooms such as amanita or psilocybin; and recently hugely popular cacao retreats have been organised in the country. These all seem to be fuelled by a desire to experience non-normative psycho-spiritual states, the wish to ‘see’ that which cannot normally be seen. In addition, recent surveys indicate that more than half of Icelanders believe it possible to have contact with the dead and that spirits can come to them in dreams. There is also a common belief in rebirth; that ancestors are, at some level, still present, and may be contacted; and the grudging - at least publicly anyway - acceptance of the existence of elves. These beliefs are not practices as such, but rather a broad recognition of the ‘magical’ properties of the country and its inhabitants; seen or unseen, living or dead.

Icelanders´ personal inclinations seem fused to this more open approach, and the Icelandic pattern of ‘freelance magic’ is probably fairly unusual in this respect, a by-product of the ancient individualism and self-sufficiency required of the early settlers. Survey after survey has shown the potent hold that the power of nature - and its related notion of spirits and otherworldly presences - has had a huge effect on the self-image and imagination of the people. It has been said that Iceland and Greece are both unique in retaining a continuing collective memory of a spirituality that is more earthy, and directly related to the landscape and the mysterious; and that this has affected the psyche of their inhabitants.

That Icelanders still regard elves as potent forces, and that they still - in numbers that are more reminiscent of indigenous societies - think that the spirits of the dead are, at least nominally, present, is surprising. Seeing the dead, either in dreams - or through having a ‘sense’ of their presence - along with a deeply held connection to nature, and a belief in the presence of elves and other beings, certainly creates a fertile territory for animistic and shamanic expressions to grow in the country. As our identities ebb and flow, so too do our alliances and ideas about the world. The line between what individuals believe in, and what they profess as true, is never a scrupulously clean one. Icelanders, because of their potent animistic history that regards the landscape in a sacred manner, engage in informal sacred practices; not necessarily in an attempt to contact spirits in order to assist society at large, but instead, to dive into their own psyches in order to ennoble their lives.

José M. Tirado (’ö-Zér Jamgön Dorje) is a Puertorican poet, Buddhist priest, and political writer, living in Hafnarfjorður, Iceland. Hafnarfjorður is known for its elves and its lava fields.

He has studied and practiced Zen Buddhism for more than 20 years, and was ordained as a Jodo Shinshu priest in Japan in 2003. Currently he is an apprentice within the Tibetan Buddhist Aro gTér lineage. He holds a BA in Religious Studies, and MAs in both Buddhist Studies and psychology.

He teaches meditation at the University of Iceland, and is head of the Buddhist Meditation Society of Iceland. Currently he is working on a Ed. D in education. Blog: www.naftali2012.wordpress.com tirado.jm@gmail.com.

NOTES: 1: Landvættir are spirits of the land in Norse mythology. They protect and look after the specific places where they live, which can be as small as a rock, or a corner of a field, or as large as a section of a country. Iceland is said to have four major ones responsible for the country. See the article about land spirits in this issue of Sacred Hoop.

2: The Æsir and the Vanir are the two families of Norse gods and goddesses. The Æsir gods are more like warriors, linked to bravery and society, while the Vanir gods are more peaceful, and linked to nature and peace.

3: The Church became increasingly repressive of pagan practices in Iceland, especially after Iceland became ruled by Denmark in 1380. The Danish authorities introduced laws against witchcraft in the C17 and during the next hundred years or so, there were many witchcraft trials, resulting in twenty-two death sentences, only two of which being given to women, the rest being given to men.

YOUR’RE GOING TO THINK I’M WEIRD

The Shaming of our Indigenous Roots and the change from Wyrd to Weird

Matthew Appleton

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it ’

George Santayana

‘You’re going to think I’m weird’, ‘This is going to sound weird’, ‘I’m worried you will think I’m weird’. These are statements that I’ve often heard in my practice as a Craniosacral Therapist and psychotherapist. I have heard this from clients, and from therapists I’m supervising.

Mostly - but not exclusively - I hear this from women, and mostly - but not exclusively - this statement is followed by the recounting of an experience, that falls into one of three categories. They are either encounters with what seems to be guidance, from ‘another dimension’ - many work in some form of healing profession, such as Craniosacral Therapy, and feel their work is supported by this guidance. This may include guidance from the ancestral realm or spirit guides. Although these encounters are ‘imaginal’ - in that they are not ‘real’ in the sense that we usually define reality - they are not experienced as purely internal or subjective; and have their own autonomous or semi-autonomous existence. Or, they are from a rich inner world, in which images and intuition are a primary source of knowledge. This may include powerful dreams, precognition and synchronicities -in which inner world and outer world mirror each other. Or finally, from an animistic worldview based, not on belief, but instead based upon direct experience of nature as being animated by Spirit. This includes communication, or embodied communion, with aspects of the natural world; including animals, plants and minerals. People presenting this, often experience non-verbal dialogue, or a direct transmission of information, which arrives as a gestalt; and this is accompanied by a deep reverence for the natural world.

Usually, although not always, if one of these categories is indicated, all three are present, as an interconnected orientation to life. Also, often the ‘admission’ to an experience that falls into any of these categories is accompanied by feelings of embarrassment, shame, or a fear of ridicule. Whilst we all know people who are fantasists, or who inflate things with self-importance, the people I am referring to are not like this. The ego-inflated do not worry about being seen as ‘weird’, they assume their ‘gifts’ will be seen as a confirmation of being ‘special’ or ‘more enlightened’ than others. Compared with those who are concerned about being seen as weird, those who parade their ‘specialness’ are a small minority. The non-inflated majority have a stable relationship with consensual reality, and the problems that they have in relation to these experiences, are more related to accepting them, and feeling accepted by others, who have not had them; and also knowing how to relate to them.

The term ‘weird’ is usually used in a derogatory way when coined to describe a person. It suggests the person is odd or strange in some way. This labelling of a person may be done humorously - but with an undertone of mockery - or done more directly, with a strong sting of derision. The word ‘weird’ derives from ‘wyrd,’ a term rooted in the Anglo-Saxon worldview of more than a thousand years ago. The meanings of this word have been researched extensively by psychologist and researcher, Brian Bates, who studied in depth, a series of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the British Museum in London. Whilst the word wyrd also implied strangeness or the inexplicable, it originally did not have the derogatory implications it has today; indeed, it points more towards sacred depth; towards, that which lies beneath the surface and interconnects all things with each other. Wyrd then, was the unexplainable force, the Great Mystery underlying all of existence

In his 1983 novel ‘The Way of Wyrd’, Bates has the hero Wulf - an Anglo-Saxon sorcerer and mystic - try to explain the different facets of wyrd to another character in tale, Wat Brand, a Christian missionary, who has been sent to discover more about the beliefs of the indigenous peoples of Britain. Wulf tells Wat; ‘The pattern of wyrd is like the grain in wood, or the flow of a stream, it is never repeated in exactly the same way. But the threads of wyrd pass through all things and we can open ourselves to its pattern by observing the ripple as it passes by. When you see ripples in a pool, you know that something has dropped into the water. And when I see certain ripples in the flight of birds, I know that a warrior is going to die.’

When Wat tries to reduce wyrd to a rigid concept, or set of deterministic laws, Wulf warns him: ‘You are strangling your life-force with words. Do not live your life searching around for answers in your word-hoard. You will find only words to rationalise your experience. Allow yourself to open up to wyrd and it will cleanse, renew, change and develop your casket of reason. Your word-hoard should serve your experience, not the reverse.”

Anyone who has read the novels of Carlos Castaneda will recognise a similar pattern of dialogue between Don Juan the sorcerer and Castaneda. Don Juan tries to share his lived experience of the spirit world, which he calls the nagual, to Carlos, the hapless researcher, who is attached to abstract concepts based on academic reasoning. We can also see, in the concept of wyrd, a similarity to chaos theory, which reveals underlying patterns of connection that are constantly shifting. These ideas of constantly shifting patterns, jar with the rigid laws of Newtonian physics that most of us were educated to accept as absolute realities.

Descriptions of a fluid world of interconnectivity, which underlies our everyday perceptions, and which is sacred in nature, is common to all indigenous world views; which of course includes our animstic roots as Europeans. Although the many different tribal groups of pre-Christian Europe were often hostile to each other, they shared similar world-views; and by exploring these ancient traditions, we can begin to connect with our own indigenous roots; roots which still reverberate within our collective unconscious, and which some people feel especially attuned to. Rediscovering these traditions is often experienced more as a remembering than a revelation. So how did ‘wyrd’ - a word that connects us deeply with a collective indigenous soul - turn into ‘weird,’ a derogatory word that evokes embarrassment and shame? Well, we really only have to look at the many onslaughts against European pre-Christian indigenous traditions through the ages, in order to understand why.

Within the modern European psyche there is a deep collective wound that turns us against our own roots. The same type of shaming, and the forced rejection of traditional sacred pathways can be observed more recently in indigenous people that Europeans have come in contact with and colonised. It can take many generations before there is a reconnection to, and revival of, the old ways, and when they do re-emerge, they do so in new forms. In Europe, such a reconnection is long overdue; and this is especially true, if we are to find a more balanced relationship with nature, and healtier connection with the land.

The earliest written accounts of invasion, and decimation of indigeny in Europe comes from the Ancient Romans, as they expanded throughout Europe, the Middle-East and North Africa. And as they spread, local spiritual traditions were either amalgamated into the pagan Roman pantheon, or viciously suppressed. The druids - who were the philosophers, teachers, judges and repository of wisdoms about the natural world and the traditions of the people, acting as mediators between humans and the gods - were especially hated and violently suppressed by the Romans. The druids were massacred, right across Europe, and their sacred oak groves burned.

The influence of the Druids appears to have extended throughout much of Europe, and as far as the Middle-East, and their destruction was seen as a way to break the spirit and coherence of the indigenous communities that were being colonised by the Romans. This has been the way of colonisation from ancient times, through to recent history.

The final annihilation of the druidic tradition took place in 57 CE on the island of Ynys Mon - called Anglesey in English - which lies off the North coast of Wales. The island was said to have been the main school of druidry in Europe, with people arriving from many different countries to undertake the years of study and stages of initiation that went into becoming a druid. With the destruction of the Druids, a root of our indigenous heritage was savagely severed and at a very deep level, we are still suffering from this. Druidry made a comeback in the C18th, but this was very much a reinvention, rather than the revival of an unbroken lineage.

The first Christians to arrive in Britain during the Roman occupation did not attempt to convert their pagan Celtic neighbours; and the early Celtic Church incorporated a nature-based spirituality, which would not have been so foreign to the indigenous traditions during and just after the Roman occupation. However, during the same period, the pagan Romans were converting to their own form of Christianity - the Church of Rome, and in 597 CE , Pope Gregory sent Augustine - the prior of an Abbey in Rome - to Kent in England, in order to set up an alliance with King Aethelbert of Kent. This saw the beginning of a merger of interests between the Church and the Royal Court, along with the beginnings of a missionary zeal to convert all other spiritualities to the Christian God. It is in this period of histroy that Brian Bate’s novel ‘The Way of the Wyrd’ is set. The early, nature-based Celtic Christian Church continued to thrive in the North and West of Britain, but the Roman Church, spreading from the South of England, began to become more domanent. At the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Celtic Christians and the Roman Christians came up against each other for the last time and the Celtic Church lost, enabling the Roman Church to have dominance. The Church, presuming that the pagan traditions were male dominated like their own religious hierarchy, focused on persuading local leaders to outlaw male pagans, which allowed some practices to survive through a mainly female lineage for several hundred years, until the Church started hunting heretics in the C13th and then witches in the C15th.

With the Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066, the Church gained more strength under the power of the Norman barons, and with the new social hierarchy that occured after the conquest, Norman culture was seen as superior to that of the Anglo-Saxons, which radically changed the English language. Most of the words in English, which we now think of as uncouth or rude, have Anglo-Saxon origins, but were acceptable before the imposition of Norman values. Pagan beliefs and customs continued amongst the Anglo-Saxon peasant community; indeed, the term ‘pagan’ means villager, rustic or civilian, from the Latin word paganus.

The war against European indigeny culminated in the witch hunts, which officially began in 1484, when Pope Innocent VIII declared a Papal Bull against the newly declared crime of witchcraft. This unleashed a reign of terror that lasted well into the C17th. However, it was not only the Catholic Church that perpetuated the horror, Martin Luther, the German theologian, so central to the Reformation, declared: ‘I would have no compassion on the witches! I would burn them all’

The ancestral trauma arising out of the witch hunts and the demonising of the feminine, sits in our collective unconscious awaiting recognition and reconciliation. Ancient fears that lurk in the collective psyche still have power. I have encountered this in the therapy room, with women clients who exhibit it in the form of shame and the fear of being seen as either powerful or weird. Often - as a Craniosacral therapist - when I have explored this trauma through inquiring into body sensations and imagery, the ‘persecuted witch’ archetype appears.Some people interpret this as a ‘past-life’ memory, while others recognise it as the archetypal image of the persecuted and annihilated feminine, taking the form of the witch. The witch is the ultimate symbol of the hatred of the wise-woman, the indigenous feminine, who was the personification of nature-based spirituality and natural healing; and since the archetype of the masculine became inflated to the level of a god - The God - domination over nature and the feminine has been the order of the day.

Natural healing methods, not just as a preferred modality, but as a deep instinctive attunement to living principles at the heart of nature, characterise the territory of the indigenous feminine archetype. This is not restricted only to biologically gendered women, but includes the feminine aspect of men. The balance of female and male principles, the yin and yang of the world, is at the heart of many indigenous and shamanic traditions. What we may think of as the Europian ‘indigenous soul’ has been persecuted and brutalised for the last two thousand years or so. Perhaps it is time to reclaim the term ‘wyrd’ as a positive identity, in the same way that the LGBT community has reclaimed the use of ‘queer’, as a positive, rather than derogatory term. So, next time someone tells you ‘you’re weird’, maybe you could reply with a simple ‘thank you.’

Matthew Appleton MA UKCP CSTA is a registered Body Psychotherapist and Craniosacral Therapist living and working in Bristol, England. In 2006 he founded Conscious Embodiment Trainings to facilitate Prenatal and Birth Workshops for adults and teach Integrative Baby Therapy to health professionals internationally. As well as many published articles and book chapters, he is the author of ‘A Free-Range Childhood. Self-Regulation at Summerhill School’ (1999) and ’Transitions to Wholeness. Integrating Prenatal, Transpersonal and Somatic Psychology’ (2020). www.conscious-embodiment.co.uk

THE LORDS OF THE EARTH

The Local Spirits of the Landscape in in Tibetan, Mongolian and Norse Traditions

The popular idea of Mother, or Grandmother Earth is well known in Western culture. Even before our present ecological crisis, we have been quite used to thinking of her as the ‘Great Mother.’ Recently too, many people have started to reuse the name Gaia, who in Greek mythology is the personification of the Earth, the ancestral mother, the giver of all life. In Ancient Rome her name was Terra, from which we get the words ‘terrain’ and ‘territory,’ and also the expression ‘terra firma;’ and recently the ancient Inca and Quechua word ‘Pachamama’ has also become popular and quite commonplace. Almost all cultures throughout history, and across the world, have thought of the earth as female, as the great mother of us all; but many cultures also have male ‘Earth Lord’ spirits, who are responsible for areas of the world - big or small - especially mountains, and who act almost as princes, or barons under the rulership of the great Queen of the Earth itself.

In ancient Mongolian shamanism these ‘Earth Lords’ were called gazar-un ezen, which literally means ‘earth master.’ In Tibetan they have the name sa-bdag, which means exactly the same thing, sa means earth and bdag means master. From about the C15th Tibetan Buddhism came to influence Mongolia a great deal, and many Tibetan words for sacred concepts were adopted, so nowadays Mongolians tend to use the word savdag - which is a corruption of sa-bdag - instead of gazar-un ezen. In ancient Norse cosmology these beings are known as Landvættir, which in modern Icelandic has become lant vaihtir. This translates into English as ‘land wight.’ A wight is an old Germanic word for a male spirit, although nowadays the meaning has changed somewhat - thanks to popular fiction - to now often mean an aggressive ghost-like spirit, who is often connected to the undead. These Earth Lords are responsible for certain areas of the land, some big and some small, and a way of picturing them is as those medieval barons, each with their own territories, spread across the land, and within each baronary, they are the ruler, to whom other spirits show a degree of fealty.

In Mongolia and Tibet the sa-bdag are seen as being closely realated to the klu, or lus. kLu is the Tibetan name for them, and lus is their Mongolian name, but they are best known in the West by their Sanskrit name naga. They are water spirits, and just as the soil and water on a hillside can not really be separated, as the soil is wet with the water, the klu and the sa-bdag cannot really be thought of as separate beings: although of course - just like water and earth are actually separate things, the sa-bdag and the klu are too, but they have a gestalt between them, that means it is hard to think of the one without the other. In Mongolian shamanism they are often said together in a compound word, lus-savdag.

The Tibetologist Rene De Nebesky-Wojkowitz, in his seminal book ‘Oracles and Demons of Tibet,’ describes it in this way, and also adds additional spirits connected to the landscape: ‘The sa bdag who dwell in the earth, the klu who dwell in the water, the btsan who reside in the rocks, the gnyan who stay in the intermediary space, the gzhi bdag who live on [mountain] passes, the gzhi bdag who stay on narrow [mountain] ledges, the gzhi bdag who live on boats and bridges, the gzhi bdag who dwell on roads. The Tibetan word gzhi roughly translates as ‘ground,’ ‘base’ or ‘foundation,’ so a gzhi bdag is a ‘foundation’ or ‘ground lord;’ the spirit of a specific geographical feature in the world. A btsan is a type of spirit who lives in the mountains; they are known to enter the body of shamans in trance, and speak through them. They are very similar to Elves in many respects, and could be thought of as their Tibetan equivalent. Gnyan are generally malicious spirits who live in the air, at the surface of the earth. Many of them make homes in trees, and so care should be taken when felling timber so as not to upset them.

According to Tibetan understanding, sa-bdag are believed to be malevolent deities who are responsible for a number of diseases, but shamans and Buddhist lamas can counteract the harm they do by various methods. Lamas will tend to use very formal ceremonies, making offerings and reading Buddhist texts out loud. But Tibetan shamans make more active responses, one of their methods being to heat sand, or small stones over a fire in a sort of metal wok-like bowl. This burning-hot sand is then scooped out by the shaman using their bare hands and thrown at the sick person, or onto the land, in order to drive out the impurities put there by the sa-bdag, which have caused the illness. This hot sand is said to be a potent weapon against the sa-bdag. In Mongolian shamanic traditions however, the savdag are said to be rather indifferent to humans and not generally responsible for illness. Tibetan cosmology is full of rather aggressive spirits, which perhaps reflects both the Tibetan character and the harsh, wild landscapes of Tibet; but that is not to say that their teachings about these aggressive spirits should be disregard, as there is much that is accurate and useful within them.

Sa-bdag, and also the klu, are said to often travel in straight lines, rather like the concept of the Dragon Lines of China, and the Ley Lines of the West. Care should be taken when building upon, or disturbing these sa-bdag lines, and there is a large body of knowledge regarding geomancy in Tibet, which is used to determine where a building should be placed. Mongolian shamanic traditions even warn about crossing these paths in case it causes offence or disturbance. They say erecting a ger - yurt - on a line can lead to the death of someone or their animals. The Mongolian understanding about these lines is that they can vary from just a few metres, to tens of kilometres in length, but each line is fairly narrow. Sometimes, ceremonies using a ritual stake, or a phurba dagger, are done in order to locate and pin down the head of the sa-bdag, to stabilise the ground before a monastery, temple, or Buddhist stupa can be built.

Care for the earth is essential if the sa-bdag are not to be offended and upset, and various human activities must be avoided. These include making a hearth, or fire place, untidy, and disrespecting the spirit of the fire, by burning waste or polluting things upon it. Other things include the cutting or burning of trees, the breaking of rocks in the landscape, the laying of foundations for a building, and the digging of the earth, even for the planting of crops. The topsoil is considered to be like the skin of an animal, and under the earth, the stones and plant roots are like an animal’s veins, arteries and muscles. For this reason, in both Tibet and Mongolia, traditionally it was forbidden to damage the surface, so one could not drive in a stake, or erect a post, without an urgent need, even to tether a horse. Any ‘wound’ caused to the earth by these types of actions needed to be ‘healed,’ by filling in the hole, and restoring any disturbed soil or turfs.

When we look at our own culture; with all its mining, quarrying, tunnel boring, de-forestation and pollution of the land and water, we see a marked difference between our culture’s disrespectful attitude, and the attitude of the Tibetans and Mongolians. One Buryat Mongol shaman explained it this way: “If you ignore these signs, you get sick, but if you don’t know the signs, if you can’t recognise them, how will you know what is wrong?’ “That’s why, during the Soviet period, many people ended up in hospitals... the knowledge had been lost, and so they suffered. When you think of all the people who died unnecessarily, because they didn’t know what was happening to them. All the problems we suffer now - alcoholism, broken families, depression... the savdag controls them. “Once you know, you can see it... if the information is out there, and people have a centre that they can turn to, for help and information, then some of these problems can be solved. We have to educate people...”

Here is a short Tibetan prayer asking forgiveness from the sa-bdag: ‘Forgive us for making fire on hills, for rolling boulders, for poisoning lakes or digging earth, for cutting trees, for whatever acts have harmed the sa-bdag.’

Permission should also be asked before anyone intrudes on their territory, so when travelling to a new country, or a part of your own country where you are not normally, offerings and a respectful greeting should be given to the sa-bdag of that area; you don’t burst into someone’s house without asking permission. Mongolian shamans say we are always in close contact with the lus and the savdag, and as a result of us mistreating them, we become victims of their wrath. They also say that natural disasters, such as drought, floods and freak weather, famine, pandemics - and even man-made disasters such as wars - are all caused by the wrath of the lus-savdag. Pacifying these spirits and keeping the balance between humans and the spirits is one of the main tasks of a shaman. The shamans also say that a savdag’s home is a mountain or a hill, and that a savdag walking on the ground can literally disappear into the soil and rock of a mountain, like a wolf going to it’s den. In Mongolia, they are many stories about savdag pretending to be humans, especially in the mountains and the taiga forest.

This connection to mountains is why in Tibet and Mongolia earth shrines - called ovoo in Mongolia - are placed on mountain tops and passes in the mountains. They are places where offerings to the lus-savdag are made. Nowadays these offerings have had Tibetan Buddhist elements added to them, such as ‘Earth Wealth Vases’ - sa-bcumd bumba in Tibetan.

These are special vases, often made of ceramic, which are filled with precious offerings designed to pacify the sa-bdag and bring peace to an area of land. They are highly ritual objects, that are made and empowered in traditional ceremonial ways, and buried in careful rituals along with other offerings, on troubled land; or at the base of a new ovoo. There are different types of treasure vases, all with specific intents, some are buried in the land and some are kept in a house. Household ones are designed very often to bring wealth and harmony to the family, and they can be passed down through generations.

The Norse tradition of land spirits, has many similarities with the Tibetan and Mongolian sa-bdag and savdag traditions. One of the first settlers of Iceland, a man called Goat-Björn, was offered a partnership in the care of the land by a ‘rock-dweller’ and was said to have prospered afterwards. The landvættir are said to control the fertility of the land, and reside in a specific spot in the landscape, which can vary in size from a huge rock, to a large mountain. Traditionally, many Icelandic farms have rocks which are considered the home of the landvættir, and the grass is not mowed closely to these, and children are not allowed to play on them.

One story about Iceland’s Keflavík airport, which lies to the south of Reykjavík, is that the foreman of the work dreamed that a woman came to him asking him to delay the moving of a boulder in order to give her family time to move out. He paid attention to the dream and stopped that part of the construction - much to the annoyance of the company behind the airport - until she came to him again in another dream, and told him that the landvættir had all moved out. Just as in Mongolia, people with a magical ability are able to see the land-spirits, who appear in dream form, like in the incident above, or in physical form, out in the world.

This knowledge about them is very ancient, and came to iceland with the original Norse settlers. It has remained part of the Icelandic ethos about the land, despite Christian attempts to suppress it. In the ‘Hauksbók’ - ‘the Book of Haukr’ - an Icelandic book dating to the C14th, a Christian bishop rages against the ‘foolish women’ who take food out to rocks and hollows, in order to feed the landvættir, in hopes of being blessed with a prosperous household. This attitude of care, and of making offerings to the landvættir has many manifestations. In the medieval Icelandic ‘Landnámabók’ - ‘The Book of Settlements’ - an ancient Icelandic law is laid out, one which forbids having the removeable dragon-prow head of a Norse longship in place when coming in to land, in case the landvættir are frightened or disturbed. Sometimes however, this disturbing was done on purpose as an act of aggression or warfare. In the Icelandic ‘Egils Saga,’ the hero, Egil Skallagrímsson, set up a níðstang scorn pole [see the article on Elves in this issue of Sacred Hoop] in order to disturb the land, to help Egils win over the rulers of the land. Iceland is said to be protected by four large landvættir, and the Icelandic coat of arms depicts these, in the form of a dragon in the east, an eagle in the north, a bull in the west, and a giant in the south.

These four landvættir are also on the ‘tails’ side of Icelandic króna coins, and also on the crest of Iceland's national football team. In Iceland a lot of these ancient traditions have been preserved, but of course such understandings were once found all over Europe. The pre-Christian Germanic peoples took great care to maintain the favour of the landvættir, and as with the Álfar - the Elves - the giving of offerings and showing respect continued long after the people were officially converted to Christianity, and the veneration of the pre-Christian gods had ceased. But sadly, for the main part, this knowledge of the land spirits - whether they go under the name sa-bdag, landvættir or savdag - has now been lost and humanity is reaping the effects of this broken relationship.

If you wish to make offerings to them you can follow the same sort of ways as are laid out in the article about the Elves in this issue, with the addition of making smoke offerings. Smoke offerings are called bsang in Tibetan, and although the word originally meant juniper, it now means any form of incense. If you wish to do bsang offerings, I suggest you avoid all synthetic chemical incense, and get some natural Tibetan or Bhutanese incense instead. This can be bought as either sticks or loose powder, and it is often good to use powder for bsang ceremonies. You sprinkle the powder on burning charcoal blocks outside - ideally on a dedicated earth altar area - and make prayers to the sa-bdag offering them the sweet smelling smoke. Of course you can always burn juniper or cedar leaves, or other ‘smudging herbs’ you normally use.

To pay respect to the sa-bdag is to reaffirm our commitment to respecting the sacred nature of the land and our intent to bring peace and harmony between the humans and the land spirits. In this time of ecological crisis and rampant destruction of the environment, is there anything more important?

A THING ON A STRING

The Magic of Thai Penis Amulets

David Gamble-Moore

‘That has to be a scam’ was my first thought when I saw the penis amulets, but scam or not I kinda liked the roaring tiger clutching the phallus, riding it like it was a rocket. At $15 I ordered it, thinking if I was disappointed I’d still have a cool penis amulet I could whip out at pubs for a laugh and not get arrested over. Let me back up to what made me look into penis amulets in the first place. I am intersex, a true hermaphrodite in my case, and like most of us born in 1990, the doctors partially removed my penis without my parent’s knowledge, justifying this as avoiding stress for the family.

Instead, it led to years of trauma and health issues. I was living with the internal emotional hurricane of somehow knowing I wasn’t whole, and wanting to be fixed somehow, as I grew up and realised I wasn’t going to get a penis when I magically turned into a man - which I was obviously supposed to be. There were consequences on a physical level too, as I was unable to make hormones which would have been made by the tissue they took which led to health issues; the most challenging of which has been a heart condition. Doctors have been unwilling or legally not allowed to help without my agreeing to a full hysterectomy and hormones to ‘transition to male,’ which I’m unwilling to do. I was born fully both and that’s exactly what I’m supposed to be. I inherited family traditions of medicine, but it is illegal to practise the hormonal parts of that medicine, and thus I can’t supply the materials I need. That led me to becoming deeply interested and involved in herbs and energy work for my own needs, and that has reflected into my practice as an herbalist and holistic practitioner.

Like many intersex people, when I hit twenty-five years old a hormonal shift led to my body becoming more male. That triggered more health issues, as my body was unable to keep up hormonally. I, like many people in these sorts of situations, experience a ‘ghost limb,’ and strangely, so do my sexual partners. Oddly, having had most of my physical penis removed - although some has grown back - doesn’t seem to stop my sex life. There’s an ongoing psychological war every time I try to experience my own body, but my partners are plenty satisfied.

Still, as I tended a spirit house in my shamanising room, I had the thought: ‘What if I made a spirit house for my penis? Would I somehow feel more whole?’ Humans are just spirits, right? Surely some priest, somewhere has worked on war veterans who also lost their cocks?

Thus, here I was, having located a specialist monastery, famous for making just such a thing for just such folks. There is a vast and colourful variety of traditions around what’s called a palad khik, which I’m told roughly means ‘honourable surrogate penis.’ These are amulets, usually made of wood or metal, that most people believe originated in India as part of Hinduism, but which has become a shared tradition amongst Chinese, Thai, and other people practising animism, shamanism, and Buddhism. Palad khik are given as offerings, worn on the body, or even just put in dwellings and business spaces for their energetic value.

I was interested in getting a small brass one, the sort men wear traditionally around their waist under their clothes, and sought one out. They are worn often to attract love, sex, and good luck, while also repelling harmful spirits and protecting the owner from harm. Some palad khik are just penises, while some have a bird, or a tiger, bat, or even a dragon attached to them, all hailing from earlier animistic traditions. I did some divination and found that a tiger one was best for me. The monk I approached in the monastery - without knowing my own divination results - did his own divination, which showed the same.

Once a palad khik is obtained, there are a few things that need to be done. Firstly, they have to be empowered, which is usually done by a priest or monk though chanting a kata bucha or a ghata pooja, depending on the culture and the tradition. The kata bucha and ghata pooja are incantations and mantras which are recited, some of which go back as far as pre-Buddhist animist magic. Sometimes this empowering can be done by the purchaser, if they know what to do.

I hung my new tiger penis on a long red string, and put it around my neck, where it would reach low to my waist. When I did I sensed something shift, but I couldn’t tell you what. Then I took it off, held the palad khik in my receiving- left - hand, through which I usually wake up objects, and talked to it. It seemed to stir, as if it was waking up from a nap. I told it what my intended purpose was, and it agreed to help me. I put it back on.

The effect was not instantaneous, and it may have taken two minutes to fully understand what I was feeling. However, what quickly came clear to me was that I hadn’t realised that I had walked through my life with big energetic mittens rather than hands. For the first time I experienced edges to my fingers, which became an individualised sensation. It was as if I had edges to my body, which admittedly has been a difficult thing to experience. As time went on, I noticed a shift in how I experienced the world through my hands. I felt textures more, as well as temperature differences, and that sort of thing. I noticed it took me less time to do precise tasks too. I can’t help but think of my one client, who was a lesbian, who made a comment one day about ‘feeling men’s penises in their fingers,’ and how icky it was to even shake hands with a male. She assumed I knew what she was talking about. I didn’t. Was this her meaning?

As far as me, as a hermaphrodite, providing a home for my ghost dick, well, no cigar. It’s as if it’s too small to fit in. Also, when I put the two together I experienced groin pain and cramping. However, I have hands now, fingers. It has changed the way I ‘touch’ the world. I still live with the pained psychology of not being whole, of being damaged, and the need I have for that to be fixed; although I have noticed that this feeling has lessened, and it’s less intrusive on my functioning. It has been entirely common for me to have horrible non-functional black depressions, and when I am finally able to shift through the darkness, I am able to find the castration as a cause as to why they come. However, after I obtained the palad khik, I had fewer of these too. Having worn the amulet for several years now, I think the improvement is related to the amulet, because when I take it off the darkness comes around more and is more noticeable. When I take it off, I feel like a part of me is leaving, or is elsewhere.

Obviously putting one person’s experiences onto others is insane, so I took the idea of the palad khik to my clinic, and I called up all the trans men and intersex folks I had as clients, who had all - at some point - expressed the experience of a ghost dick. Those phone calls basically went; “Hey, wanna try an amulet? I’ll get it for you if you tell me how it works for you.” Four people took me up on it, and their experiences have been roughly equivalent to mine, although one person felt it in his tongue before his fingers.

If you want to get a palad khik for your own, I’ve had good luck with finding monasteries that sell these on the internet shopping site Etsy. You sometimes have to ask for the kata bucha to be performed - which I suggest you do before making the purchase. I like that you can read reviews from these shops and see if the stuff works or not; but there’s no real guarantee that what you’re paying for is what you’re getting of course. If you do want to go down this road for whatever reason, use search terms like ‘penis amulet,’ ‘yantra (animal),’ and ‘lingham amulet,’ as I find those terms work quite well.

All this has inspired a new adventure for me. With how my body has changed, I now need a prosthetic in order to use the bathroom; so I’ve decided to get a prosthetic that looks like my cock looks in my mind. It’s been moulded and cast from a cis male cock, someone who didn’t have their parts removed. I found a company who will do this for me, and I will try re-housing ‘Ghost,’ my spirit dick, there and see how it goes.

David Gamble-Moore is an herbalist, holistic practitioner, and a bunch of other things. They are Irish-Appalachian, living in the Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA, with a very culturally diverse family. David runs Embody Healing, LLC, which specialises in holistic health care and ethnomedicine. They are also a board member for the All Faiths Movement, an organisation that protects the religious freedom of the unchurched or those in minority belief systems. www.strange-and-wonderful.com www.embody-healing.com www.all-faiths.org

THE INITIATORY SHAMANIC SICKNESS

Shamanism, Mental Health and the Dissolving of the Individual

Jez Hughes

‘Those afflicted in this way become depressed, distracted, and unresponsive; they were unable to work, slept for long periods, often talked during sleep, jumped up from their beds, and ran into the taiga to avoid contact with other humans. They often remained in solitude for a long time, refusing to eat, they lost weight. Attacks of hysteria accompanied by convulsions, insensibility, fear of brightness and so forth were sometimes the typical symptoms of such illness. In most cases the situation of the afflicted deteriorated greatly till, in the absence of any witnesses or assistants, a spirit took lodging in the shaman candidate deep in the taiga. When this happened the person fell into a state of ecstasy and lost consciousness, and the spirit finally came to dwell in him or her. He would then return to a more balanced state.’

Such is an account of the Chinese Reindeer-Evenki tribe from M. Shirokogorov, an early C20th explorer. This, in many ways, is a typical description of what became known as the ‘shamanic sickness,’ which often follows a certain pattern. The potential initiate, often around adolescence, suddenly begins to be psychically haunted in their dreams or waking visions. These visitations prompt mood swings and exhibitions of erratic behaviour, often accompanied by physical symptoms such as convulsions or repetitive rocking alongside changes in physical appearance such as weight loss. They withdraw, sleeping for long periods, and are unable to engage in normal activities. This eventually leads to a complete cutting off from society when they take themselves off voluntarily into nature to live alone as a semi wild person – some accounts have the initiate running around naked, eating bark from trees and howling wildly. Previous to this phase they may also ‘act up,’ and break many taboos within the community.

Finally, often at the point of extreme physical degradation and nearing death, they are visited by a spirit and given the power and information needed to shamanise. They then return to the community and begin a formal training. This pattern, in various forms, may last for many years. And even when some relief is found through the spirits, the arduous training can then continue for several additional years.

The shamanic sickness was a well-documented phenomenon in Siberia and other parts of Asia. Anthropological records are full of these accounts. They also have a cross-cultural theme to them, being found in Asia, parts of the Americas, Africa and other regions of the world, with variations but similar themes. The writer, John Grim in his 1983 book ‘The Shaman’ writes: ‘Two terms - ‘sickness and withdrawal’ - describe the intermediate stage in the formation of the shaman. These terms are used to convey the reactions of the shaman to the numinous encounter. The sickness is a prolonged illness that may have both psychic and physical symptoms. The withdrawal is removal from social interactions because of the disequilibrium associated with the initial spiritual encounter.’ What is important to note here is that it is the initial spiritual encounter that creates - and is the catalyst for - the subsequent mental and physical disorder. To be touched by the spirits is seen as a deeply disturbing act, which is somewhat counter to our spiritually starved expectations in the modern world that usually centre around and emphasise positive encounters with the numinous.

Many books are sold, and much spiritual seeking is done on this premise. However, these powerful experiences of being open to, and touched by, the spirit world can lead to challenging periods of disequilibrium, as our individual selves try to make sense of them. These are not easy encounters, even in societies that recognise them as significant spiritual and culturally sanctioned events. John Grim, in ‘The Shaman’ recounts how the wife of a famous Sagay [Khakass] shaman describes her husband’s experience: ‘How did he become a shaman? Sickness seized him when he was twenty-three years old and he became a shaman at the age of thirty. That was how he became a shaman, after the sickness, after the torture. He had been ill for seven years. While he was ailing he had dreams: he was beaten up several times, sometimes he was taken to strange places.’

Thus, the initiatory experience is viewed as ‘torture’ from those witnessing it from the outside, even in cultures that may have a sense of what is occurring in the bigger picture. Why might it occur in this way? Why is the initiate haunted by the spirits? And how might it relate to modern experiences of mental illness? To answer these questions, let’s look at three things: what it might mean to experience an animistic cosmos in all its power, a shamanistic understanding of what causes sickness in the first place, and the often ambiguous way traditional cultures view the role of the shaman.

From an animistic perspective everything is alive. So, anything you can ever think of or imagine, that either exists outside or within the depths of the human mind or soul, has a spirit to it and is animated. It has its own life force. From the most exalted aspects of life, to the most terrible. There is no separation between what is in your mind and imagination. and what is alive and ‘real’ in front of you. Everything that has ever been created, and everything that will be, has a place in this spiritual animistic universe, from a mountain, to a car, to a disease, to a political philosophy, to a nuclear bomb, to things we only at present dream about. We, as humans, are part of that creative dream, as the way we alter our environments through our material endeavour shows.

Yet, in order to be able to function effectively in the world, we cannot exist in this mode of consciousness or perception all of the time. To constantly see the world as it truly is - from an animistic perspective - would be just too overwhelming. We have limits on our perception, filters that refine all the sensory and non-sensory information we are receiving at any one time. From a young age the brain gets used to this repression, in order to survive. One such tool we have evolved is ‘complex language.’ In naming and defining the meaning or nature of things, we can separate them from the whole. We begin to categorise aspects of reality, reducing and conceptualising our experience into definable and manageable units. This gives reality a form and structure that is collectively agreed upon. It is through learning language, that we are able to cognitively make sense of our experience. Language gives rise to thought, which is able to separate the ‘I’ from the rest of experience, so as to become self-aware, and therefore navigate through life.

Language also binds us together socially, its predominant use being in conversation and interaction. The evolution of complex language was one of the main aspects of the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago that gave birth to the modern human. This is what set us apart from the rest of nature, and through being able to communicate in more and more abstract ways - including the stories and myths we have based our cultures on - we began to build more and more complex social structures, leading eventually to the rise of civilizations. We evolved collectively, through these shared definitions of reality, both experienced and imagined, that language introduced.

Consensual reality is then an essential part of our evolution as a species, and associated with life and death survival. To fall outside of this would be deeply disturbing for any individual in any culture. One of the major diagnostic symptoms of psychosis is ‘disorganised thinking, or speech,’ along with other conditions, including mood disorders and mania. Loss of the power of language to organise and structure reality is closely associated with the problems that mental illness precipitates. It is also deeply associated with transcendental and altered states of consciousness. People often find it a struggle to put into words their experiences as they seem so beyond the descriptive. Thus, language defines reality but also limits it, so that definition needs to be constantly renewed, lest it become too fixed.

The Wixirrika (Huichol) tribe of north-central Mexico, who I work closely with, have a ritual, whereby they deliberately break this hold that language has on consensual reality, and they perform it on a regular basis. Every year, they undertake a pilgrimage from their home, high up in the Sierra Madre mountains, to the desert of the Wirikuta in order to harvest their sacrament, the psychoactive cactus hikuri - peyote. This 500km used to be undertaken on foot and take two months; however, because of private ownership of the land they need to cross, it is now travelled by car and is much shorter. The purpose of this pilgrimage is to retrace the journey that the ancestors made at the beginning of time, when the sun rose for the first time on the sacred mountain, the Cerro Quemado, so that the world may be renewed.

All those who travel will also be renewed. Part of this ritual involves the renaming of everything; so that words for the sky, ground, plants, cars, and so on, are all given new and different names, as is everyone on the pilgrimage. The men are often given female names, and women, male ones. These new names, or labels of reality, must be adhered to for the whole of the pilgrimage, and each pilgrimage will have new and different names. Thus, as the pilgrims enter the mythic zone at the beginning of time, so perception is altered through the deliberate breaking of language’s hold on consensual reality. This is further enhanced through the ingestion of the teacher plant hikuri. In a conscious way, reality is taken apart, in order to be renewed during this annual ritual. To begin to train as a mara’akame - a shaman-like medicine person - you must undertake this ritual at least five times. During the shamanic sickness, it could be said that some part of the system that filters and represses perception breaks down in a spontaneous way, and the person is instead overwhelmed, all at once, by the true animistic nature of reality. Rather than in a structured and ritualised way as described above, they are thrust into a world where all the different and conflicting consciousnesses merge with each other, and overtake the person’s normal, everyday awareness. The ability to cognitively separate out aspects of experience becomes compromised, which makes functioning in normal life extremely difficult.

The ability to communicate with others, or understand this experience through everyday language, is also highly compromised, and people struggle to describe what is happening to them. So, the individual is unable to interact with or engage in normal social activities and as a consequence feels extraordinarily alone. They are cast off and separated through this breakdown of the structures that hold individual and collective thought together. It is as if what we might experience as ‘normal’ in a night dream - where different logic and rules around the nature of consciousness exist - invades waking life, and becomes impossible to separate from it, with waking life then becoming much more like a nightmare.

From a modern, psychological perspective, we could say the person is being subsumed by the unconscious. Everything that the brain normally represses in order to survive is unleashed, and there is no seeming way to close the door again, to shut down this vast tidal wave of unconscious thoughts, images and emotion. This could be due to a catalysing event, some kind of trauma, or through a general disposition, whereby the normal repressive system is not as efficient or effective: temperamentally the person is overly sensitive to that which other people can normally repress. They’re over sensitive to life. Thus, the shamanic-sickness leaves the door a little too open to the wider nature of reality. Usually, it is a mixture of both. How the person responds to being invaded in this way will also be related to their temperament. They may shut down completely, in an attempt to reinforce the repressive mechanisms that aren’t working, thus sinking into the numbness of depression. There are a number of new theories that suggest that depression is an evolutionary response to an over stimulated sense of danger in the autonomic nervous system 1 .

People may also respond with extreme fear and agitation and be consumed by anxiety and panic; and again the threat of overwhelm - perceived in the nervous system - creates an evolutionary reaction. They may over identify with what they are experiencing, beginning to perceive connections everywhere and give increasing attention to the images or outside voices that are leaking through the individual ego and as a result, have a psychotic break with reality. They may experience extremes of emotions, harrowing grief, or the ecstasy of wild abandon. They may, in an attempt to regain some semblance of control, begin to obsess over certain aspects of life, food, their body or appearance. Or, further try to control reality by sinking into the mire of addictions. Often people will attempt a lot of these strategies and more. Humans are extraordinarily creative beings and many of the symptoms of mental illness reflect this creativity. Yet, they are responses to something underlying happening within the person, and not the sickness in itself, which is what modern diagnostic criteria focus upon. What is ultimately happening is that the sense of ‘I,’ or individual identity, is being lost. Thus, the oft repeated statements, “I don’t know who I am anymore” or “I don’t recognise myself.”

In cultures such as our own, which are based almost entirely on individualism, this loss of identity often equates with a complete loss of a sense of reality. Indigenous, shamanistic cultures tend to have a deep understanding and unusual acceptance of the sickness and ‘evils’ that can harm humans. This is usually reflected in their cultural stories, many of which tell how sickness first entered the world – often by accident or the result of someone breaking a taboo or natural law. Many of these stories may also reflect the notion that, as death brings balance to, and defines life, so sickness balances and defines health. It is a way of nature keeping itself in equilibrium. It is also reflected in the shaman’s power, as the same energy that is used to heal and cure can also be used to cause disease and kill. It is from the same source and is morally neutral. Anthropological accounts from the Amazon basin highlight why the indigenous populations tolerate the presence of ‘evil’ shamans who are known to cause sickness and death through their magic, as they keep the physical and spiritual worlds in balance. There is also a paradoxical nature to life in this world, in that this cursing can contribute to the survival of humans, as it ensures they don’t overpopulate the forest 2 .

The shaman’s job is not to destroy or defeat all sickness; this is the role of redeemer heroes that we in the West have grown up with, who take on the whole of mankind’s sins, or teach that there is a place where we can transcend all suffering, and that it is possible to live in such a paradise – either in this world or the next – if we give ourselves to these heroes. This can create a one-sided view of the universe. Instead, the shaman is there to ensure that these energies of sickness don’t get out of balance and overwhelm the tribe. Sometimes this will mean defeating the spirits of sickness in a curing ceremony, sometimes it could mean appeasing them by other means. The shamans keep this balance by being in a close relationship with the spirits of sickness, and thus keeping them under control for the community.

They look after or manage them, so to speak. I experienced this myself with a mara’akame from the Wixarika, who was known to work with some of these ‘darker’ spirits. This was ironic because his personality was one of the sweetest and gentlest of any traditional healer I’ve ever met. He was a renowned mara’akame and elder in his community, and before the ceremony, where the focus would be on the healing powers of the light of the sun and fire, he would set up an altar outside of the ceremonial space and give offerings to the spirits of sickness and chaos – ensuring that they were well fed, whilst requesting that they didn’t enter the ceremony. Another example of this managing is that when a powerful shaman dies, these spirits of sickness can be released back into the community, causing all kinds of problems; as this account, again from the Chinese Evenki, of a period of time after the death of a famous shamaness, highlights: ‘Deprived of its security valve, the group was left now without protection against the spirits and experienced a catastrophic period without the shaman. The spiritual safeguards the deceased shaman had erected whilst alive broke down; abnormal states of mind became frequent, illness, accidents, suicides and other misfortunes increased.’

The shaman is the person who, in Jungian psychological terms, could be seen as carrying parts of the collective shadow - everything that the society represses and views as destructive and dangerous. In doing so, they embody an important and protective social function and keep the destructive forces at bay. It could be argued that this archetype is very much still alive in human societies. The only difference now is that people will be holding this unconsciously, and instead of being recognised and respected for this role they are much more likely to be relegated to the margins of society and even persecuted; places the mentally ill have traditionally occupied. In accepting the ambiguous nature of life on earth, where death and disease - although disturbing - have their place, and reflect the dual nature of existence, it becomes clear that shamans have to know these spirits of sickness well, so they’re able to recognise and treat disease when it comes to life in this world. Thus we get to the heart of why a shaman may be called by the initiatory shamanic sickness; the healer must know what it means to be sick. It is important to remember here that most shamanistic cultures don’t make a definition between mental or physical illness.

On another level, the shamanic sickness can be seen as a ‘payment’ for the ‘spiritual gifts’ that will later manifest in the individual. It is a recognition of the reciprocity that is at the heart of these traditions; in order for something to be given, a person will first be tested. It also prepares the person by humbling them and bringing compassion to the forefront, so that when these gifts come, they won’t be abused. The suffering and pain breed empathy, compassion and humility.

This is an edited extract from the book ‘The Wisdom of Mental Illness - Shamanism, Mental Health and the Renewal of the World.’ See a review in this issue of Sacred Hoop.

Jez Hughes has been on the shamanic path for over twenty years, and is the founder of the training centre Second Sight Healing. He works closely with the Wixarika nation of north central Mexico, as a cultural liason for their work in the U.K. and also through a ten-year commitment to apprentice with the sacred sites and teachers of their land. His own initiation involved a fifteen-year journey through various mental illnesses before finding a cure in shamanism, hence his passion for this subject. ‘The Wisdom of Mental Illness’ is his second book, his first ‘The Heart of Life- Shamanic Initiation & Healing in the Modern World’ was published in 2015. www.secondsighthealing.com

NOTES: 1 For more information see: ‘We’ve Got Depression All Wrong. It’s Trying to Save Us,’ by Alison Escalante. Psychology Today, Dec 2020, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shouldstorm/202012/we-ve-gotdepression-all-wrong-it-s-trying-save-us 2: Neil L. Whitehead and Robin Wright, eds, ‘In Darkness and Secrecy: The Anthropology of Assault Sorcery and Witchcraft in Amazonia’ Duke University Press, 2004, pp. 47–8, 120–22.

SEEKING THE LEGEND OF YOU

The Making of a Hungarian Shaman

Ivan Szendro

I would like to share how the practice of shamanism has changed in the culture of a village on the eastern border of Hungary. I learned about these changes through the memory of the daughter of a pioneering innovative shaman of the early twentieth century, and through her, I learned of the memories of her father, which reached back into the nineteenth century. This is a story of how we build on the foundations of those who have gone before us, and I am grateful to my two mentors, Anna Halasz, and her father, Ferenc Papo. Without the knowledge I received from them, I could not have built my own shamanic healing practice in the United States.

Shamanism is an inseparable part of Hungarian culture, and we can learn about the shamans - who are called táltos in Hungarian - through childhood fairy tales and commonly used old magical expressions. However, I never thought that I would ever get close to a living, practising táltos, or that later, I would myself be a practitioner of this ancient craft, especially since I grew up in the city of Budapest.

When I became a young man, I reached a crisis point in my life, and withdrew from a promising career as an actor. A generous friend invited me to stay with him, close to a village called Nagygéc, which is close to the Romanian border. While I was there, the area experienced a devastating flood that destroyed Nagygéc 1 , and the first time I came to this village and its people was when I went to help rescue workers during the flood. Most of the villagers were evacuated and started new lives elsewhere, but in spite of this, some people stubbornly refused to leave. They remained rooted in the place they had known their entire lives. They were, in effect, keepers of their culture. During the time of the flood, when I was helping the inhabitants evacuate, I heard over and over again about a local legend called the ‘Judge of Blood 2 ,’ and that legend drew me back to the ruined village some years later. During that time, I got to know many of the villagers of Nagygéc, some of whom had relocated to the place where I was staying with my friend, and one of the people I got to know was Anna Halasz. She had moved to the village where I was staying and was living in a small house on the property of some relatives. That is where I visited her many times, and heard the stories she had to tell me about the culture and myths of the village, and about her father’s life as a village táltos.

Based on what I learned from her, I have identified three stages in the recent development of shamanism in Hungary. The first stage was in the pre-industrial times of the last half of the nineteenth century. The second stage took place during the agricultural revolution of Hungary in the twentieth century, when village life began to change; and the third stage is the one I know, and have developed, in the post-industrial times of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In the late nineteenth century, villages in Hungary were all largely homogeneous. On the eastern border of the country, where Nagygéc is located, people tended to share one religious tradition; a Protestant Christian one. But, another cultural resource they shared were the ancient shamanic myths that everyone knew. These collective myths became story- vehicles that táltos in the villages used in their work. Myths carried the healers and clients together, beyond their consciousness, to where they could receive answers for the unsolved problems of the clients; for both spiritual and physical illnesses.

As I heard it from Anna, who heard it from her father, the person needing help would visit a táltos and the táltos would chant a legend that was familiar to both of them. This activity triggered a deep emotional response in the client, heating up their soul, and creating conditions for healing. During this time, the ancient shamanic myths the táltos used were often blended with Christian symbolism that was accessible to everyone. This practice introduced elements of change in shamanic practice in this part of Hungary.

By the early twentieth century, when Anna’s father was a practising táltos, village life had begun to change. For one thing, there was religious diversity. Ferenc Papo and his family illustrate this diversity, as they were Catholics who came from western Hungary to an area where most of their new neighbors were Protestants. This diversity increased throughout the twentieth century, as industrialisation had begun, and people were more mobile. This meant that even in a remote rural village, the population had a variety of worldviews and belief systems. For the most part, people got along by politely avoiding religious issues and other areas of cultural conflict.

However, this presented a problem for the táltos, who were working in the way I have just described; as blending religious symbols and ancient myths, in healing work that drew on common collective myths, would no longer work; as people now had different religious beliefs, and came from different cultural and ethnic traditions. Anna’s father, Ferenc Papo, however, was an innovative pioneer in finding a solution to this problem, as he created a way to serve the entire village, that transcended the cultural and religious differences. He uncovered a modern mode of healing in the decades when C.G. Jung came up with a similar idea of personal mythology. This is still incredibly effective a hundred years later. Ferenc Papo’s system of personal mythology comes from an individual person’s own life story; and in this way, he was able to overcome the problem of different cultures and different belief systems.

Here is how he worked. First, Ferenc lived apart from the village, in a hut in the woods. So when people needed his help, they had to make a pilgrimage to the woods to see him. When a person came to him, he would begin the session by telling them his own personal shamanic initiation myth, instead of working with a collective myth. He would tell the person about the ‘Celestial Army’ that came to him during his initiation, in a field, while he was guarding the sheep. The ‘Celestial Army’gave him knowledge of ‘seeing,’ but they took one of his ribs in exchange.

Contrast this with what the psychologist C.G. Jung wrote in 1950 about his own ‘initiation,’ echoing Ferenc Papo’s personal quest to attain authenticity to heal: ‘The whole thing came upon me like a landslide that cannot be stopped. I had to admit that I was not living with a myth, or even in a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust... it struck me what it means to live with a myth, and what it means to live without one... ‘The psyche is not of today; its ancestry goes back many millions of years. Individual consciousness is only the flower and the fruit of a season, sprung from the perennial rhizome beneath the earth... For the root matter is the mother of all things... ‘I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: What is the myth you are living?’ ‘So in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my myth,’ and I regarded this as the task of tasks... ‘I simply had to know what unconscious or preconscious myth was forming me, from what rhizome I sprung.’

Ferenc Papo’s healing concept transcended the religious divisions in the village, and was something everyone could relate to. He would interview clients in front of his hut, asking them some personal questions. After that he would retire for a deep sleep, while he left the person waiting outside, sometimes for days. Then he would come out from his ‘dream hut,’ and share with the visitors their personal healing legend; or as Anna described it, ‘how he saw them in the Other World.’ Ferenc Papo unfolded people’s personal mythology, based on the actual events - tragic or happy - of their lives. However, he reworked these details in a new, uplifting way, creating a new myth with an upward, inspiring synopsis that pointed toward solutions and healing. I have often played with the notion: ‘what would have happened if Jung had met with Ferenc Papo?’ Perhaps would Jung call Ferenc Papo’s therapeutic mode something like; ‘the Up-Conscious Method.’

The basic mode of the táltos of Nagygec’s healing still had its roots in the old Hungarian-Siberian traditions of centuries past, but he found a new way to use this power, one which suited the changing context of the village around him. Like the ancient healers, he worked with his clients to bring them to an emotional and spiritual catharsis, one which would lead to their healing; and like those who had gone before him, he drew on the power of myth to achieve that goal. And above everything, he did it using language and ideas that would reach the citizens of a changing world.

After I had learned from Anna, I began to study the traditions of Siberian-Hungarian shamanism thoroughly, and began my own shamanic experiments; choosing myself as a guinea pig to see how it works. Based on my new knowledge, I developed a mythic, theatrical ritual, based on ‘The Judge of Blood,’ that ancient collective legend from Nagygec I had encountered when I first went there. This was a myth that all the villagers, indeed all Hungarians, could relate to in some way; as it touched a deep vein in Hungarian history. Everywhere I presented the legend-ritual in Hungary, it generated a deep and powerful response; and it did not matter where I performed it, in cities or in rural areas. People understood what the legend was saying, and it touched them very deeply. And after a coincidental event in the village, when I went through my own initiation as a shaman, it became my legend too; ‘The Legend of a Self-Made Shaman,’ who heals his whole nation, a nation afflicted by the dictatorship 3 .

In the late 1980s, just as communism was ending in Hungary, I felt it was time to leave my country of origin, and I moved to the United States. I carried with me the precious knowledge that Anna had so generously shared with me, and I wanted to use it, just as Ferenc Papo had done, as a healing tool. In the new diverse culture I found myself within.

But I quickly noticed that the collective legends were not triggering cathartic and healing emotions among the people who came to me. The ‘Judge of Blood’ that I had learned, and was powerful for audiences in Hungary, was not having the same effect in the United States. There were too many cultural differences; the people I met did not share the same history and culture.

Then I remembered that Ferenc Papo had been bold enough to change the tools he used; and so, over time, I developed a mode of working with the idea of the positive personal myths, developing on what he had introduced. The soul-searching I did with my clients to uncover their personal legendary past proved especially effective; and now, together, the client and I search for mythological context from the events of their life. The personal mythology that we unveil is what I call ‘The Legend of You,’ and sometimes the legend emerges from just one detail of a story; from a cathartic event of my client’s life. Sometimes their life story resonates with an existing myth or legend; and oftentimes the problem the person presents holds the seeds of their solution. In each case, the person experiences an uplifting and healing power through following the ascending direction of their personal legend.

The innovation of Ferenc PapoI that I learned through Anna is twofold. I rarely use the symbols and tropes that he developed to transcend the cultural and religious differences among the villagers in his home in Hungary; instead, I find universal metaphors in the materials of the lives of the people who approach me for help. Also, I do not have the luxury of withdrawing into the dream world for several days, although in a way, I too have my dream hut, the oldest settlement house in Snedens Landing on the Hudson, in New York State.

I have developed a shamanic journeying method of ascending with the people through the universal symbols of their own, personal stories; flying beyond the here and now, toward what I have coined - inspired by Ference Papo and C.G. Jung - our ‘Up-Conscious.’ This is where the stories of my client’s life come together for me, in an uplifting legendary vision. When I share this with my clients, it triggers explosive changes in their metabolism and immune systems. They become highly resistant to ever-prowling spirit of illness; and I am not just talking about sicknesses that endanger the body, I am also talking about sicknesses that endanger the souls as well.

I am profoundly indebted to Anna Halasz and to her father, Ferenc Papo. Anna carried the memories of her father’s work, and was incredibly generous and kind, sharing Ferenc Papo’s revolutionary innovations in shamanic practice with me. His pioneering contribution was to recognise that personal myths can guide us to the same rhizome of knowledge that Jung wrote about. I feel gratitude while I am following his footsteps, not just in my adoption of personal myths, but also in the confidence Ferenc Papo exhibited to find new solutions for new challenges.

Ivan Szendro has studied the traditions of the táltos and uses the power of myth and legend in his healing work. For over 40 years, he has been contributing to the modern understanding of shamanism through his methodology. His work is based on his insight that the personal myth that lives within each of us can be used for healing. He has been a member of the International Society for Shamanistic Research since 1994 and has presented papers at ISSR conferences in Budapest, Alaska, and Guiyang, China. In 2008, a Hungarian documentary team made an award-winning film about his work entitled ‘The Self-Made Shaman.’

Email: thelegendofyou@yahoo.com

NOTES: 1: The village of Nagygéc was destroyed in a flood on May 13th, 1970. The population of the village at the time of the flood was 706, but ten years later it had dropped to just 22 people. The village was never rebuilt, although in recent years the C13th church has been restored and a very controversial memorial park built and recently opened by the notorious Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

2: ‘The Judge Of Blood’ is the story of Baron Jacob Haynau, an Austrian military leader who suppressed insurrectionary movements in Italy and Hungary during 1848 and later. He was known as an aggressive and ruthless commander and executed many of those he captured. He bought a castle close to the village of Nagygéc, which is why the local legend about him arose in that part of Hungary. Ivan Szendro worked with this local legend, transforming Haynau from a human to an archetype of the embodiment of all dictators

3: The Hungarian dictatorship of János József Kádár. Kádár was the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, a position he held for 32 years, relinquishing it in 1988. Communism was replaced with multi-party elections and a direct presidential election in 1989.

CLIMBING THE SKY-HIGH TREE

Uncovering the Traces of Hungarian Shamanism

Hungary has always been a crossroads of cultures. Its position in Eastern Europe, on the Western edge of the great Eurasian steppes that sweep across Central Asia to Mongolia, Siberia and Northern China, has meant it has received cultural influences from a very wide geographical area. The country, as it stands today, began around the year 1000 CE , when the King István the Holy, converted his kingdom to Christianity and started to look more Westwards to Europe than the country had previously done. It wasn’t all plain sailing for Christianity however, there were early rebellions against the new religion, and the old traditions hung on with dogged determination here and there.

The country gets its name from the Huns, a nomadic people who came from Central Asia, originally living in a vast area which included Kazakstan, Mongolia and even parts of China. These were a shamanistic people, who migrated and reached Eastern Europe around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire; indeed they were quite integral in that fall. Their influence on Hungary was great, roughly during the time that corresponded to the Dark Ages of Western Europe. In the C15th, the Hungarian author of the ‘Chronica Hungarorum’ - Chronicle of the Hungarians - Johannes de Thurocz, drew on ancient legends that Attila, the ruler of the Huns, asked several táltos - the Hungarian word for a shaman-like figure - to foresee the outcome of the Battle of Chalons. The battle, was in 451 CE , and was between the Huns and the Romans.

Before the Huns however, Hungary was on the Western edge of the Scythian empire. The Scythians were also a shamanistic culture, although they were not a single race, but instead were made up of many different tribal groups and nations; all of which had animistic and shamanistic traditions. The dynamic relationship with the cultures of the great steppes of Eurasia continued into medieval times. In 1241 the Mongol armies, under the leadership of Batu Khan - a grandson of Chinggis [Genghis] Khan - attacked and defeated Hungary, slaughtering a huge percentage of the country’s population. The Mongols returned again in 1285, and conflict continued in minor ways until the 1340s. During this time, it is quite possible that some Mongolian spiritual influences were injected into Hungarian culture, which would have added to the shamanistic mix.

The Hungarian language is a member of the Uralic language family, which also includes the Mansi and Khanty languages of western Siberia. Both of these cultures are shamanistic. The language is also related to Finnish, Estonian and Saami, as well as to some of the shamanic groups of North Western Siberia. These peoples migrated through Hungary to get to their current homelands, and so all of them have links to Hungarian culture. From these many cultural connections, it is no surprise that shamanism was a major aspect of Hungarian life until the Christianisation of the country, and even then, given the wild and rural nature of the land, elements of it survived, mixing with Christianity, to become a sort of sacred folk tradition. Of course, these shamanistic influences were not solely confined neatly to the Hungarian borders, and so, similar traditions were also found in all the neighbouring regions such as Transylvania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland.

Although, as said before, the Hungarian word for a shaman is táltos, that was not the only word used for people with a knowledge of magic. There were also nezo or lato, who are described as seers; javas, who were sacred herbalists; boszorkany, who were witches, specialising in often dark magic; tudos, who were wisdom keepers and garaboncias, who were magicians that wandered the countryside. The tradition is now no longer a vital living one, certainly not in its original potent form. Like elsewhere in Europe, centuries of Christianity have eroded the pre-Christian sacred ways, so that little more than folklore remains. But from those echos of the sacred traditions in the folktales and practices and cures, researchers have winkled out the traces of ancient Hungarian shamanism and built a picture of it. In more recent times - as with many other places in the West - a growing interest in ancient Hungarian spirituality has developed.

This has resulted in a re-invention of the táltos traditions, in much the same way as druidry was recreated in Britain, and more lately in North America. These recreations are always a mixed blessing, as a lot of Hollywood-esqe, new age romanticised material gets put in - which was never there in the original traditions - and yet, some of the dying embers of the old tradition are also blown back to life as well. When the folklore is explored, it seems that a táltos could be either male or female, or though most were male. Like shamans in Mongolia and Siberia, they had to be born with a special gift, which meant they were different from childhood - chosen by the spirits. They were said to be born with distinguishing marks, such as extra fingers, strange body hair, extra teeth, or born with a caul covering them. The ceiling of the fortified medieval church of Székelyderzsi in Transylvania had a painted figure with six fingers, which was said to represent a táltos; although this was repainted in later centuries to give the figure five fingers.

Táltos were said to be able to shape-shift into either a bull or a wild horse. Horses seem to have been especially important to them, and they were said to have special sacred, magical steeds - called táltos paripa - which later became common in Hungarian folk tales. Many táltos were said to actually work closely with horses, with which they had a special affinity. Several archaeological excavations have discovered stuffed horse-skins, which seem to have had a ritualistic purpose.

There is evidence that they did not get on well with other people, especially other táltos, and that they could be aggressive. Folktales often record them fighting viciously, wrestling, biting and hitting one another; defending their personal territory, and punishing any who mistreated them. This reputation appears to have given them respect in the community, no one messed with a táltos, but they could be approached for help despite this; a fierce reputation was a sign of a strong practitioner. They are also often described as people who move their body a lot, talk a lot, yell and speak loudly, are always hungry, eat fast and consume large amounts of food; but of course all that could be Christian, anti-táltos elements, put into the folktales, like in this folk song:

There is a woman in our village. She moves so much; Her hands and legs move all the time; Even her head moves; Every part of her body moves, That's how she walks on the street. Many times they tell her: “You are like a táltos.” For she does not walk Like a quiet old woman, But walks like a táltos.

In 1725, Erzsébet Balázsi - a well known táltos - was accused of being a witch. The court asked her to explain the role of a táltos, and she replied that they cure, see buried treasure with their naked eyes, and fight for Hungary in heaven. It is thought the táltos used frame drums in their practice, but by the time of the witchcraft trials of the C17th this appears to have mostly died out: much as it has now with Islamic shamans in Central Asia. The drum seems to have been symbolically replaced with a wooden sieve, and these ritual sieves are part of folk dances and associated with folk magic, such as fortune telling. The making of frame drums and wooden sieves shares a lot of similar construction techniques, and if a drum was no longer used, but was still important, then a sieve would make an excellent visual substitute, especially in folk dances which contained hidden shamanistic elements.

One other interesting piece of ritual equipment was the luca-széke. This was a ‘magic seat,’ sometimes called a ‘witch-stool,’ on which magic was practised. In Christian times, the luca-széke had to be empowered by smuggling it in to a Christmas-Day mass, a bit of derring- do by the pagans. The stools are mentioned in C18th witch trials as banned and criminal witch implements.

Sacred stools are found in various cultures; for example, special ritual stools are a feature of some Nepalese shamanism; but given the connection between the Hungarians and both the Finnish and the Saami peoples, it is interesting to wonder if the Hungarian luca-széke stool is related to the seiðhjäll, the high seat, or stool, used in Norse seiðr ceremonies. There is a lot of discussion as to where seiðr originated, whether it was introduced to the Norse peoples from the Sami, or whether it is from elsewhere. According to Norse mythology, the goddess Freyja was the first to teach seiðr. She is part of the group of Norse deities called the Vanir, who are thought to have originated in the area of the Don river, east of Hungary. It is possible then, that the story of Freyja teaching seiðr indicates that seiðr has its earliest origins in the area north of the Black Sea, which the Don’s waters eventually flow into, via the connected small Sea of Azov. It is not a huge stretch of the imagination then to see a possible connection between the luca-széke chair and the high seat of seiðr, seeing as the two cultures are linguistically connected.

Another surviving shamanistic motif found in Hungarian folklore is the égig érö fa - ‘sky-high tree,’ or ‘heaven tree.’ It is also called the életfa - tree of life - or tetejetlen fa - tree without a top. This is the world tree, so common in many shamanistic and animistic cultures worldwide, including, of course in Norse mythology, with the tree Yggdrasil. The ‘sky-high tree’ features in folktales and art in Hungary, as well as in Transylvania, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Turkey. The táltos were said to climb the tree, and then wander in the seven layers of the Upper World. Part of the magical equipment of the táltos seems to have been a ritual ladder, and this may be a symbolic representation of the sky- high tree, which they presumably climbed while in trance. The trance state of the táltos was called a révülés, and it was said that in that state they could heal wounds, learn hidden secrets, and send their souls up the sky-high tree, and go out into the stars. This concept continued into Christian times, when Jesus was sometimes referred to as the égi táltos - the heavenly táltos.

It is clear from the surviving folklore that Hungary was a deeply shamanistic culture in the past, and that the spirit of its táltos still flows in the blood of its land, and in its people and their vibrant culture.

REMEMBERING HANK WESSELMAN

1941-2021

Richard Parker

In Maya Angelou’s lovely poem, ‘When Great Trees Fall.’ the poet creates an extended metaphor, comparing the falling of great trees and the falling of great souls. Her final stanza reads: And when great souls die, after a period peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.

For those who knew the shamanic teacher and paleoanthropologist, Hank Wesselman, Angelou’s words speak to us. After being with Hank in person, or through his eloquent writings, we are changed for the better and inspired for more. Hank Wesselman was a key teacher in modern shamanism for nearly the last 30 years, inspired by indigenous spiritual wisdom, especially of ancient Hawaii. Deep connection with the spirit realm came to him in the 1980’s, which is lyrically documented in the first book of his trilogy, Spiritwalker. His voice as a teacher and author is unique because Hank was also a scientist. He earned his doctorate in Anthropology from U.C. Berkley and worked over decades as a researcher in the Rift Valley of East Africa with such luminaries as Dr. Tim White, Dr. Don Johanson, and members of the Leakey family. With many research findings and articles to his credit, Hank was most focused upon paleoenvironmental reconstruction of sites in the 4-6 million year old range. He was rightfully very proud of his cutting edge work.

Hank’s interest in indigenous spiritual wisdom was sparked while he worked as a Peace Corp volunteer in Nigeria for two years in the 60’s, living with the Yoruba tribe. Later, while doing extensive field work in Ethiopia, more connections were forged. What changed the course of Hank’s life, however, was in coming into spontaneous spirit connection with a descendant from roughly 5,000 years into the future, again, beautifully chronicled in the ‘Spiritwalker Trilogy.’ These books also led Hank and his wife, transpersonal healer, Jill Kuykendall, to develop a deep friendship with Kahuna Nui Hale Kealohalani Makua 1 . As time passed, Hank and Jill began to offer the Visionseeker seminars together, in many of which Makua joined them as teacher. Hank and Jill are cofounders of ‘Shared Wisdom.’

It should not go unsaid that Hank took a big risk in leaving full-time work in his trained profession of anthropology. He did this because he felt the calling of the unseen realm, and he had the support of Jill. It was his kuleana - sacred responsibility - to become a master teacher and to share his knowledge and experience with thousands. It is also important to note how the partnership and love of his wife, Jill Kuykendall, enhanced Hank, his teachings, his writings, and all who have been a part of the Shared Wisdom community. Jill too is a master teacher and writer, so what a combination when they taught together.

Hank was always clear to say that the age of the guru is over and that he was not a guru. He insisted that one’s best teacher is one’s higher self, the oversoul or aumakua, and he would never attempt to interpret anyone’s journey, meditation or experience. Within this notion, he taught the three soul understanding of the Hawaiians, the mental soul - uhane or lono; the body soul - ku or unihipili; and the oversoul - aumakua. It is the body soul’s - the ku - function to receive the communications from the oversoul, and the crucial function of the mental soul - long to provide discernment. Much of Hank and Jill’s teaching was designed to help students align their three souls, in order to function skillfully and serve in the world. Hank loved myth, not as something to be taken literally but to be interpreted by the individual. He felt that the old myths of our culture are not serving us or the planet, and that each of us must endeavor to create a new mythos, rooted firmly in the positive polarity.

Those of us fortunate to have been Hank’s students and friends feel this great loss. Hank possessed only what the very best teachers have: a deep sense of humanity, a profound depth of knowledge and intelligence, sincere love and care for his students, a wonderful sense of humour, the deepest personal experience with the material, and humility. He and Jill have taught thousands of people to access the information provided by the unseen realms, and in so doing enriched the lives of so many. The depth of Hank’s wisdom is truly inspiring. Perhaps, his greatest contribution was in providing what he called an ‘upgrade’ to the ancient principles of shamanism into a new form that reflected who we are now and who we are becoming. Thankfully, one can get a taste of this upgrade in his prolific and skillful writings. Perhaps his most profound book is ‘The Bowl of Light: Ancestral Wisdom from a Hawaiian Shaman,’ a brilliant look at the wisdom teachings of Hale Makua, and how they apply today.

Shared Wisdom: www.sharedsidom.com

NOTES: 1: Kahuna Nui Hale Kealohalani Makua was seen by many as the chief Kahuna of the Island of Hawaii. He was a seventh generation descendant of King Kamehameha the first king of Hawaii. He was recognised as a kahuna elder and as a high chief all over the oceanic world. The Hawaiian word kahuna implies mastery, and Makua was the keeper of an extraordinary and possibly unequaled body of knowledge. He was also a warrior, a mystic, a sage and an accomplished healer. In his later years he became an international figure, speaking at gatherings and conferences in America, Africa and elsewhere, including sharing the stage with the Dalai Lama at the United Nations in New York.

Richard Parker, EdD is a lifelong educator, and teacher of meditation and Kripalu Yoga. He lives in Maine, USA.

MAGIC, IMAGINATION AND THE QUANTUM SELF

Elizabeth E. Meacham

Moving beyond the mechanistic-industrial belief systems, we find our way to knowing beyond time and space We merge into quantum reality, We discover that we are in the whole and that the whole is in us; the universe seems to reside in a starry sky accessible by falling through and intothe gateway of our own hearts Some of the energies, sensations and experiences that arise through a return to knowledge in shamanic reality often feel ancient and dramatically wild. These can include fundamentally non-linear incidents and encounters that feel outside of time, or existing in radically unusual and reordered experiences of time and space. Moving beyond the mechanistic-Cartesian and industrial belief systems, we find our way to knowing beyond time and space as many of us know it. We discover that communication is possible across vast distances, and the edges of ‘objective’ shared reality are porous and fluid. We merge into quantum reality, sense the holotropic reality of the cosmos, experience that each part is contained in the whole. We discover that we are in the whole and that the whole is in us; the universe seems to reside in a starry sky accessible by falling through and into the gateway of our own hearts.

When we step beyond the limits of reason, it is our imagination that becomes the path to shamanic experience. At first, and often after, we may doubt ourselves and wonder if we are ‘crazy.’ Perception and events are beyond synchronicity and can only be described as magical. A kind of meta-synchronicity draws us into a vast network of consciousness that we now know is there, but that we can no longer fully understand or conceptualise to its outer reaches. We only know that we are nodes on a vast web; we are distinct yet fully merged with miraculous interwoven rivers of vibrations. I now realise that while we cannot understand why or how vibrational reality exists, we can foster relationships within vibrational reality. While the limits of our human minds cannot conceive this vast matrix of light, our hearts can access and interact with vibrational reality through love.

Shamanic practitioner and teacher Sandra Ingerman emphasises the importance of imagination to access the energy fields of the shaman: ‘Imagination is another key element in performing the miracle of transmutation. We must be able to envision an environment that is pure and clean and which supports all of life. With the power of imagination, we have the ability to sculpt the world we live in.’

As Ingerman, and so many others, remind us, we are ‘dreaming the wrong dream.’ We believe that we are separate from nature; thus we make it so through our thoughts, actions and inherent creative nature as light beings. Our own imaginations are so atrophied through our culture, and lack of connection with Earth and Spirit, that the visions we come up with from our place of separation are anaemic at best, and dangerous and destructive at worst. Ingerman continues; ‘These illusions are seeds that grow into plants of fear, anger, hate, despair, and darkness. We need a new dream to create a new earth.’

The imaginal realms are where we leave the boundaries of reason and concepts and enter into symbolic reality. Shamanic experience, the place of visioning, intersects with the journey of science into the underpinnings of life and the heart of the cosmos, discovering knowing beyond the limits of the innate mental structures, seen in the ability to become aware of the structures themselves. In ‘An Encyclopedia of Shamanism,’ Christina Pratt captures the journey of Western science to find our way back to the fundamental nature of reality; a world of vibrations, visions, dreams, stories and the matrix of cosmic consciousness: We live in interesting times. Our foremost scientists, to whom we have given the task of explaining the material nature of our universe, are now describing a universe that the shamans have been describing for thousands of years. The scientists have arrived there through fact and experimentation and the shamans through their experiences in altered states of consciousness. We are coming full circle. It is as if the shamans have stood still and the developed world has gone around the circle the long way, through rigorous scientific exploration, and arrive where humanity started, in the shaman’s universe. As we approach the gateways to the imaginal realms – the place of symbols, spirit and magic – we can help ourselves across the threshold by soothing our questioning minds with ideas from Western science.

In his book, ‘The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist’s Guide to Enlightenment,’ Amit Goswami describes quantum mechanics as a way to understand experiences that seem to exist ‘beyond reason.’ He suggests that there exists in all of us a quantum self; a part of us that is accessible beyond the limits of what we understand as shared physical reality. He refers to both the experience of quantum reality and the notion of the quantum self: ‘One spectacular aspect of any quantum mechanics is the possibility of nonlocal correlation – parts of a system that are separated by distance dancing in phase in a coordinated, coherent fashion.’ And later in the book, Goswami continues with the same idea, suggesting that ‘as we fall into a quantum self we become privy to a nonlocal window of memories – past, present and future.’

Through shamanic experience, the result of cultivating portals into the quantum matrix of reality, we come to relate to beings that we know in our hearts are ‘real:’ elemental nature energies, ancestors and spirit helpers, among others. In relationship and authentic communion with these beings our new dreams of reality are kindled. We are all equipped with the tools needed to foster shamanic experience. The most basic things that any child likes to do are the means. Joy, play, dance, song, wonder, full feeling, complete presence, and our sensitivity and inherent connection with nature: these are the ways to open the gates, and they are readily available to all of us. Music, art and dance are natural creative resources to express feelings and connection with magic and mystery. These basic human functions are a daily need, and a wellspring of relationship with each other and the cosmos in all her expressions.

Imagination is another essential medicine for reconnecting with and re-dreaming our world from a state of conscious integration with the vibrational matrix of life.

Through visualisation and imagination, expressed as ritual and ceremony co-created with Earth and Spirit, we can open to life-changing experiences of oneness. Often, our minds cannot follow where our bodies and hearts lead. Our minds are ill-equipped to act as containers for fully embodied relational consciousness. Yet, ‘the watcher,’ the fully integrated, multidimensional ‘self’ from which each of us emanates, can support the profundities of being and knowing in the imaginal realms. It is through re-threading ourselves into the weave of the matrix of life - which we can think of in Western terms as the level of the quanta - that we move into our full capacities as humans and find our way back to experiences that can best be understood as ‘magic.’

Discovering magic happens through fostering gateways to mysterious encounters and feelings that intertwine with and exist beyond causal-linear reality. We are not taught to relate to and hold the deep magic and mystery that are hallmarks of fully actualised existence. Magical encounters and leaps of creativity into numinous knowing do not fit into accepted reductionist and instrumental concepts of what is ‘real’ in the world. Our ancestors knew the ways of conscious dreaming: bringing forth each new day in communion with the ancestors and spirits of the Earth; speaking of visions and sightings across the veil; making dreaming the world into being a central and honoured place in the circle of community.

One way to open to the matrix of life is to slow down and connect with nature, our nature and the nature all around us. In wild nature, in the country, even in the city, we can find our way to an innate knowledge of subtle realms that many people in Western culture have forgotten. By slowing down and opening to our natural senses, we allow the Earth to teach us our place and ways to be nourished within the natural cycles of life. As we tune in to these subtle realms, we can learn to clear stories that hold us in thrall to ways of living, creating and dreaming that are out of balance with our own well-being and the Earth. Our soul self, the self that exists as part of something larger than our ego, wants to live in balance, peace and harmony with all of life on Earth and in the cosmos. Coming into alignment with the Earth helps to bring us into alignment with this soul self, where we find a sense of balance, fulfillment, peace and purpose previously unknown to us. We find the unique gifts that humans bring to tending and celebrating the web of life. Aligning with and accessing the matrix of life through stillness and earth-honouring ceremony, imagination, and shamanic practices open us to connection with beings in the subtle realms. Through these methods, we can learn to become conduits of healing for life, rather than pulling energy from life and continuing to drain the resources of the spirit of Earth.

As the orientation of Western culture is grounded in disconnection, a renewed connection with the Earth and ‘all our relations’ gives us new information to reach beyond the limits of our current abilities to understand or believe. Moving into contact with elemental nature energies, seeking engagement with spirit helpers, and speaking and listening to the Earth, we see new possibilities and begin to dream new dreams in alignment with the Earth and Spirit beings that exist among and around us. By re-learning to be and know from a place of integration with the vibrational matrix of reality, and the ancient wisdom and beings of the imaginal realms, we find all that we need to return to the core of our genetic inheritance: the stories and memories of the Earth, our spirit helpers, our ancestors, and the true magic of being human on this wondrous planet.

Excerpted from ‘Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices’ by Elizabeth E. Meacham . Findhorn Press. published with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International.

Elizabeth Meacham Ph.D is an author, teacher and shamanic coach and healer living in Cleveland Ohio, USA. www.ShamanicEcotherapy.com

A HEALING AT WAPITI

Performing a healing for the spirits of the two victims of a double murder and also for the spirit of the murderer in the backwoods of Virginia

Mark Miller

Looking back at what happened, I had no idea how much the experience I’m about to share would combine my own spiritual journey with the task of finding and establishing the new location for visionquests. Sometimes it seems simply impossible to chalk things up to coincidence or synchronicity, and I had no idea how searching for a new site would lead to doing a healing ceremony for the souls the victims of a double-murder, and the soul of the murderer. But, perhaps, it would make sense to start at the beginning.

My introduction to the ‘medicine ways’ and shamanism started innocently enough, while I was just beginning a doctoral program in clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, back in 1994. While I was taking part in a psychopathology class one Friday afternoon, a classmate asked me whether I would like to go to a drumming circle with them, and being utterly ignorant about such things, my response was, ‘What’s a drumming circle?’ My classmate told me more about it, telling me that had been started by Dr. Tom ‘Tomás’ Pinkson some years earlier.

Tomás had started ‘Wakan,’ a non-profit community, which was committed to restoring the sacred in daily life. Wakan aimed to integrate indigenous wisdom and spiritual medicine teaching, in order to address contemporary challenges and opportunities. The name ‘wakan’ means ‘sacred’ in Lakota, and also ‘heart of the sky’ in Mayan, so is an important word in both languages.

I went to it, and that drumming circle put me on my sacred path, as it was my first introduction to teachings from the medicine ways and shamanism; the beginning of the incredible journey of learning and growth I’ve been on ever since. Soon after that circle, I went on my first vision quest with the ‘School of Lost Borders,’ a well known source of training for vision questers, run by the late Steven Foster and Meredith Little. That vision quest was back in 1996, and since then, I have travelled on pilgrimage with the Wixárika [Huichol] people of Northern Mexico to their sacred lands of Wiricuta, and also spent time with the Secoya and Quechua peoples in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Along with those experiences I also started questing with Tomás in California back in 2002. Since then I have joined with him every year for quests, except for just two. In one of those two years, while I was sitting in the airport, with my bags all checked in, awaiting my flight out to California, I heard an inner voice which said not to go. I felt really strongly I should pay attention to this, so I gathered my previously checked-in bags, and went home. I called Tomás on the way saying that I wasn’t coming and explained about my strong feeling not to go. When I went to work on the Monday morning, my supervisor was surprised to see me, as he had expected me to be away for the whole week; but when I told him that I just couldn’t get myself on the plane, he said; “Thank god, I had a dream that you would be killed.”

But even with all my vision quests, pilgrimages and medicine experiences, I must be completely honest here, and share that there has always been a part of me that has remained sceptical. In Western culture, especially here in the United States, there seems to be a pervasive habit - at best - or, an addiction - at worst - to remain emotionally and physically in a world that is concrete, stoic, and without any sense of the numinous. Existing in this culture has, in many ways limited my spiritual growth, even though there has always been a part of me which cries out for something beyond things that can be touched or explained in mechanistic and scientific terms. But the story I am sharing here has done a great deal to remove my doubt. It has been my hope for many years to start leading vision quests in Virginia where I now live, and earlier this year, 2021 was the first year I managed to organise it.

My companion and co-helper for this first vision quest was a good friend of mine, Jack Ryan, a retired naval officer, and the place we chose for this Virginia quest was an area that Eliana, my youngest daughter and I had scouted out in the previous summer, at the suggestion of the helpful people who administer the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. These are areas of forest which stretch along the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, and into parts of West Virginia and Kentucky, it’s a big expanse of beautiful forest wilderness.

They suggested that we use an area called Dismal Creek, which is along the Appalachian Trail, the longest footpath in the world, stretching from the states of Maine in the North to Georgia in the South. When I asked for more detail, they further suggested an area around Wapiti shelter, an open-fronted timber structure, a place where hikers spend the night on that leg of the trail. They suggested this, because it was a fairly remote area, and because it has a constant water source. Basecamp for the vision quest wouldn’t actually be at the shelter though, because it was a public place, so instead, we would set up at a horse camp - a small wooded field with a pond and a couple of open ring-shaped fire places - not far away from Wapiti. Here we wouldn’t be on the main trail, where hikers passed by, so it would be possible to have true alone time. However, what we didn’t know at the time of all our planning, and which we only discovered a day or two before leaving to set up basecamp, was that Wapiti shelter was the site of a double murder, which had occurred in May, 1981. What Jack and I discovered was that a man called Randall Lee Smith had killed two people there, Laura Susan Ramsey and Robert Mountford Jr. Randall had been caught, and had been sentenced to thirty years in prison, although was paroled after fifteen. However, when Randall was released, he attempted to kill two other people at another campsite near by. The couple escaped and the police were called and gave chase, and Randall was killed in a car crash during the pursuit. When this all came to light, it was enough for us to consider a last-minute change of location, but after we talked about it between ourselves, we decided to carry on with our plans.

Then, the day before we were to leave to set up basecamp, I discovered that the murderer Randall and I both shared the same birthday, which incredibly coincided with the last day of the vision quest, June 29th. After having a truly ‘freak out moment,’ I was struck by this synchronicity. What was occurring seemed like it couldn’t be just a co- incidence, it seemed just too strange, and I began to wonder if there were other forces at work here; forces which went beyond the explainable. When I took some time to sit with it, it seemed to me that Spirit was charging me with a task in some way, perhaps to assist with the healing of these souls, and also of the land that encompasses the Wapiti shelter too. As far as I was concerned, it felt like I’d been given my marching orders. So, just before I set off, I went to my altar and selected three feathers that I would fix to the top of three prayer arrows - one feather for each arrow. I had planned to make prayer arrows during my time there - a tradition which has its roots with the Wixárika people - and I thought I would make three life arrows, one each for the souls of the murdered couple; Laura and Robert, and also one for the murderer Randall.

A life arrow, as Tomás had taught me through the years, needs to be a short, finger-width straight stick, with a feather, or feathers, fixed at the top with different colour yarn or string that is bound down the stick. The purpose of the arrow is to offer the maker an opportunity to put into it prayers for what they wish to bring into the world, or their personal life. However, as I sat close to Tatewari - Grandfather Fire - that evening, my plan was amended, as Tatewari ‘told me’ that indeed, I was to make life arrows for Laura and Robert, but instead of a life arrow, I was to make a death arrow for Randall. The two life arrows for the murdered couple would embody prayers for their souls. I felt strongly this was the right thing to do, as they had not been given the chance to live their lives, and had been hiking, in order to raise money for homeless children living in Maine, when they had been murdered. But, I was asked to create a death arrow for Randall, to afford his soul the opportunity to let go of all which did not serve him. What I found however, when I intuitively selected the feathers, was that the feather for his arrow was one that had previously been on a talking stick I had used, one which had been passed around drumming and prayer circles that I had led, for at least a decade. This feather had recently fallen off, and I had felt it needed to be retired. The feather was filled with such good, loving energy, that I felt it was a fascinating choice for Randall’s arrow.

The drive out to the forest, and the hike to our selected basecamp area went fairly smoothly, short of a tree that had fallen down across a road. This caused a detour, which added about a mile to the hike, but it was not much extra effort all in. I was paying attention to ‘signs’ though, and I wondered if the tree blocking our way was Spirit saying that we shouldn’t go on? This feeling quickly dissipated however, as we saw a deer showing us the way. The Wixárika have high regard for deer, and consider them sacred, and the kayumari - deer spirit - seemed to be on board with us, so I sensed it was OK and we kept going to the site. During that day and the next, we explored the area, including visiting the Wapiti shelter. The base camp was cleaner than it had been when my daughter Eliana and I had checked the site out the previous summer. Then, trash had been strewn all around, but this year it was somewhat better, although the fire circle, which would be the home for Grandfather Fire was ladened with drink cans and paper of all kinds. But, I had anticipated this, and brought multiple plastic bags to fill with garbage, and we planned to carry these out with us on our last day, to leave the place better than when we arrived. The area was also filled with what horses leave behind, and had clearly been ridden into. I feared that horses might come into the camp during the time we were there, which did come to pass, as fifteen riders brought there horses in on one day, leaving more horse shit - which flies quickly discovered of course.

During my time there, I first made Laura’s arrow, which had a white feather painted with golden dots, with white yarn that which transitioned to pink, and then to rainbow multi-coloured yarn. For me the white feather and colours of the yarn represented purity and feminine innocence. I was so glad that I had brought the rainbow yarn with me because it made the arrow look so pretty. Robert’s arrow had a raven feather, with white yarn on top which transitioned to turquoise blue - I felt that this had more of a masculine feel to it - and then below that, it went to multi-coloured yarn of blues, browns and greens. In many ways the two arrows seemed to match beautifully. The stick I used for Randall’s death arrow was selected because it had been used to periodically adjust the fire the night before the alone time of the vision quest began. I fixed the feather from the prayer circles talking stick on to this burned stick with black yarn, which transitioned to white. I liked the idea of the black yarn representing the ‘blackness’ of his life, and how it transitioned to the white yarn to represent a cleansing of that energy.

Jack and I walked up to Wapiti shelter on the day after the quest, so that I could show him a tree I had found. I had considered planting Laura’s and Robert’s life arrows beside it. The tree began as one trunk at the base, but quickly separated into two branches. One of the branches had what I felt was a wolf spirit within it, I could see the wolf’s face in its bark. It was only later we discovered that the tree actually had three branches coming out of the trunk at the base, with the third branch hidden behind the other two. This third branch was dying.

The plan was to first place Randall’s death arrow into Grandfather Fire in a ritual way, and then take the other two arrows to Wapiti shelter; but my intuition seemed to be saying otherwise, and instead, it said to take the two life arrows to Wapiti first, and then deal with Randall’s death arrow afterwards. So, as I got up to go, I said to Randall’s spirit, “You stay here, you are not allowed up at Wapiti. Stay here. I will be right back.” I told him that he mattered too, but I needed to deal with the two life arrows first. What seemed to be coming through me was clarity, I just knew what needed to be done. Jack commented that my voice seemed to have a distinct feminine feel to it, which made we wonder whether it was actually Guadalupe de la Cruz - Tomás’s teacher and spiritual grandmother - delivering the message through me in some way.

As we walked up to Wapiti shelter, I knew that hikers would very likely be there, and I mentioned to Jack that if anyone was, they were welcome to join us for the ceremony. When we got there, there were indeed two hikers, a man and a woman, and after I explained what we were doing, the woman, Astra, joined us. She told us that it was common knowledge among the hiker community that it was best to avoid Wapiti because of its ‘weird energy,’ but she didn’t know about the murders until I told her.

First I planted Laura’s life arrow on the left side of the tree, said some prayers, sprinkled tobacco at the base of the arrow, and then went and placed Robert’s arrow on the right side of the tree, repeating the process. Then I smudged the entire shelter and sat, played my flute and spent some time talking about the ceremony with Astra. After we planted Laura and Robert’s arrow, Jack and I returned to our basecamp, where Randall’s arrow awaited us. We invited Grandfather Fire in, and got the fire going fairly high, so that I could place the death arrow within it in a vertical position, standing tall. As I was about to place the arrow, I held it and told Randall’s spirit the reason for creating the death arrow was not to wish him any harm or pain, but rather for it to be an opportunity for him to let go of all that no longer served his spirit. I also pledged that at some time in the future I would make and plant a life arrow for him. Randall’s death arrow stood within Grandfather Fire for some time, with first the white, and then the black yarn burning away. As the yarn burned, the arrow leaned to one side, and Jack and I were tempted to prop the arrow back up, but I withheld that urge to see what would happen.

What did still puts chills up and down my spine; the feather from the top of the prayer stick was released from it, and - only slightly singed - floated lightly down beside the fire. I looked at it with amazement, why wasnt it burned? Then I picked it up, considering whether I should put it back into the blaze, and as I hesitated, I seemed to hear the spirit of Randall ask me if I would be willing to take the feather back up to Wapiti and place the it onto the dying third branch of the tree, and to tell Laura and Robert that he was sorry and ask them if they would they forgive him? I felt an instinctive ‘yes,’ this seemed the right thing to do, and I would be willing; so Jack remained at base camp while I carried the feather back up to Wapiti shelter. I placed it into the peeling bark of the third branch of the tree, and after placing the feather asked Laura and Robert if that was okay. I got a feeling it was fine, but I am unsure whether they forgive Randall for what he had done to them so many years ago, after all, it was pretty horrendous, but I did feel, in some way, healing had occurred that day at Wapiti, and I was honoured to have assisted. The next day, the 29th, the day on which Randall and I shared a birthday, we got all our stuff together and headed for home.

As I look at my experiences there, on that first vision quest in Virginia, I remember that, even after spending so many years learning about the medicine ways and shamanism, there was a part of me which remained sceptical about how these practices play out in my life. My intention is to continue doing this work, as I deepen my understanding. It is also my intention that vision quests here in Virginia can happen more, so that I can continue to learn and assist others in deepening their relationship with themselves and the world around them. These sacred ways can seem so beyond the physical world sometimes, almost ungraspable and intangible, but yet now I know at the essence of my being, and at the core of my soul that they are about healing on all levels. They are about being in relationship with all that is around us, through us and part of us; and they enable us to humbly see the connection with all beings, on all levels.

Mark S. Miller Ph.D . attained his doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has travelled with Dr. Tom ‘Tomás’ Pinkson to Mexico and spent time with the Wixárika on three occasions, including travelling with Guadalupe de la Cruz to Wirikuta. He has also travelled to the Ecuadorian Rainforest where he spent time learning from the Secoya and the Quetchua peoples. His is the author of the book ‘YUP!.’ a collection of poetry and artwork from the Mystery. He a licensed proffesional counselor (LPC), and certified as a substance abuse counselor (CSAC), and currently serves as a counselor at John Tyler Community College in Virginia and in his own private practice. He lives in Midlothian, Virginia, is the father of two daughters, and has been married to his wife, Jennifer, for 31 years.

msmbrewer@aol.com www.fawnview.com

The Wakan non-profit community www.anewvisionofliving.org

MUSIC AND BOOK REVIEWS

NAMGAR

Navaa Namgar

CD or Download: 53 mins.

ARC Music EUCD2942

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

I had to turn this up as soon as the album started playing, it grabbed by attention straight away. Namgar is the band of Namgar Lkhasaranova, a Buryat Mongol singer, who has formed her kick arse band playing very exciting traditional Buryat music. Soundwise, for some reason I keep getting reminded of Robert Plant’s more recent albums - such as ‘Mighty Rearranger’ - where he is mixing heavy rock, electronica and traditional North African music... this has similarites, except with the music of the Mongolian steepes instead of the sands of the Sahara. The Monglian band The Hu have done something similar in recent years, and become darlings of the world’s Heavy Metal scene as a result, only Namgar are more lyrical and less full-on heavy. A really gorgeous, exciting and creative album, with a huge sound and a lot of passion, a mix of ancient and modern, which at times is ambiant and etherial, and then rocking and howling, all with Namgar’s beautiful vocals. Very highly recommended.

Available from Amazon and iTunes etc.

On Spotify

On Youtube

Four and a Half Feathers - Album of the Issue

CHANGYS BAGLAASH

Khoomei Beat

CD: 43 mins.

ARC Music: EUCD2954

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

So lets’ stay in a similar part of the world to the last album, we’ll travel just a little to the West of Buryatia, into Tuva, the next door Russian state and a new album by a Tuvan band; Khöömei Beat. Khöömei is the Tuvan name for the traditional form of throat singing practiced in Tuva and Mongolian, that you will no doubt have come across in the past, and this style of singing features heavily on this album, which is much more traditional in form and sound that the album by Namgar reviewed above. It is not, however a traditional folk album, as the second part of the band’s name ‘Beat’ might well suggest. The music is often given a rock-like beat, with a drum kit, bass guitar and other instruments; a mix of traditional and modern in its sound, although no where near as creativly as Namgar pushes the envelope. Other tracks are far more traditional however, but what ever the arragement, the Khöömei is skillful and wonderful.

Available from Amazon and iTunes etc.

On Youtube

On Spotify

Three and a half Feathers

NCÓGNITA ALQUIMIA

Dazkarieh

Download: 45 mins.

Hepta Trad – HEPTA002CD

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

Dazkarieh are a Portugese band playing traditional music from the region with a rock feel. Sometimes they are ‘full on’ and sometimes gentler. They combine rock instruments with traditional Portugese folk instruments such as bagpipes and frame drums and play with energy and a wild hand. This is a 2006 album, and the band are no longer together, but it is typical of their passonate music. So go on, give them a whirl, I’m sure you won’t regret it.

Available from Amazon and iTunes etc.

On Spotify

On YouTube

Three and a Half Feathers

AADO

Kadialy Kouyate

CD or Download: 50 mins.

Naxos Records NXW76156

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

Kadialy Kouyate comes from Senegal, and is a virtuoso kora - the African harp - player. The album is delightful, the Kora is such a beautiful sounding instrument, and Kouyate is a master of his craft, having taught it in Dakar University and at SOAS University of London. Delicious playing of great dexterity, let the sounds wash over you and carry you away.

Available from Amazon and iTunes etc.

On Spotify

On Youtube

Three and a Half Feathers

SONGS FOR LEENA: Improvisations on the Hopi Long Flute

Gary Stroutsos.

CD or Download: 59 mins.

ARC Music: EUCD2953

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

The leena is a traditional Hopi bass flute that has been played for hundreds of years; instruments, pre-dating the European invasion of the Americas, having being found in archaeological digs. With its beautiful sound, the album is rich and haunting.

Available from Amazon and iTunes etc.

On Spotify

On Youtube

Three and a Half Feathers

THE WISDOM OF MENTAL ILLNESS: Shamanism, Mental Health and the Renewal of the World

Jez Hughes

Watkins Books

PB: 288 pages. £10.95/$16.95

ISBN: 978 1 78678 529 9

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

Shamanism has been - and sometimes sadly still is - conflated with the idea of mental ill-health, especially psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. Early anthropological reports of shamanism very often portrayed shamans as mentally-ill individuals. This of course is not the case, and yet there is a connection between the two, due to the symptoms exhibited, especially in the beginning stages of shamanism; the period of ‘shaman-sickness,’ when the shaman-to-be is first visited by the spirits and the person’s perception of the world changes. And of course, mental ill-health is found everywhere, and in shamanistic cultures, the shaman is the person people go to when they find they are less able to function, due to mental ill-health. To put it in every day Western terms then, we could say that the shaman is very often the therapist, rather than the client; and in the light of this, shamanism therefore has much benefit in the field of mental welfare. This is an excellent book; the author has a background in the study of mental health issues and also considerable hands-on experience of both Core and Traditional shamanism, and he has brought his skill and knowledge of both worlds to create a fascinating and thought- provoking read.

He starts by exploring shamanism and the attitudes of early anthropologists, and then goes on to explore ‘shaman-sickness,’ and how - in his own excellent words: ‘During the shamanic sickness, it could be said that some part of the system that filters and represses perception, breaks down in a spontaneous way and the person is instead overwhelmed all at once by the true animistic nature of reality.’ He then looks at the shamanic understandings of mental ill-health - caused by spirit attack, psychic pollution, wrong conduct etc - and contrasts this with Western models of understanding, and a brief history of the treatment of mental illness in the West. This is a compact overview, covering all the majorly important aspects, even down to the ‘nature-nurture’ arguments and bio-chemistry.., a clear and well written section, which includes his own personal backstory. That is all part of the first section of the book - ‘the individual,’ and Jez then goes on to discuss the societal, looking at how ceremonies - and the support of the community in relation to those ceremonies - in shamanistic and animistic cultures, help the individual. he also looks at the role of altered states of conciousness - produced by chemical and non chemical means - as a way of bringing insight out of the confusion, and so creating a transcendent clarity that breaks free the luminous personality, enabling it to step beyond the previous limits that bound it.

I found the book a great read, full of clarity and insight, combining two areas of study - mental health and shamanism - that have dominated my own professional life. Mental ill-heath is rampant in our fractured - ecologically, societally and culturally challenged - human collective; so this is a book for our time most certainly. An intelligent, accessible, highly interesting and relevant tour de force.

Available from: Amazon etc.

TIBETAN AND HIMALAYAN HEALING

Charles Ramble and Ulrike Roesler (editors)

Vajra Books

PB: 764 pages £21.00/$37.50

ISBN: 978 9937 62 335 3

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

This is a great doorstop of a book, a paperback of over 700 pages, made up of almost 60 different articles by different authors about traditional healing ways and techniques from the whole of the Himalayan region and all its major traditions - shamanistic, Buddhist and Bön. It’s subject matter ranges from Bön phurba practices, to healing with the aid of the goddess Tara, to sorting out pesky vampire troubles, to the use of divination in healing practices, and far more besides. Some of it is quite academic and not so easy to read - why do so many academics insist on using long complicated words quite unnecessarily, as a truly clever person can say complicated things in the simplest of language - but other articles are accessible and fascinating. It is illustrated with a fair few colour and black and white photos, and all in all is a damn good read. Think of it as a really fat magazine, dip into it and read articles that grab your attention, rather than trying to read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. If Nepalese or Tibetan shamanism, or Himalayan Buddhist forms of healing floats your boat, this is for you; I know of no other book that focuses on the diverse healing traditions of that region with so much focus.

Available from: Amazon etc.

HONEY IN THE RIVER: Shadow, Sex and West African Spirituality

Marsha Scarbrough

Change Makers Books

PB: 187 pages £11.99/$15.99

ISBN: 978 1 78279 948 1

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

This is a romping, poignant, humorous and reflective memoir of the author’s adventurous - and disastrous - marriage to a traditional Yoruba babalawo - priest and medicine man. It is also the tale of her erotic and sensual journey into the powerful heart of West African spirituality. The book is a captivating read, flowing off the page like an enjoyable novel; although Marsha swears it is all true, despite having changed names to protect those caught up in the tale. It gives the flavour of the Yoruba traditions and the sweetness of the Orisha spirits, who dance with the author in beguiling ways on her path through the pages. Magic, medicine and music, sex sacredness and the spirits.. it ought to be a film.

Available from Amazon etc.

ANIMAL MEDICINE: A Curanderismo Guide to Shape-shifting, Journeying, and Connecting with Animal Allies

Erika Buenaflor

Bear and Co Books

PB: 216 pages. £11.55/$19.95

ISBN: 978 159143 411 5

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

The number of books about animal spirit guides that have been sent to the Sacred Hoop office, since we first started the magazine back in 1993, could build a tower so high that you’d need your own oxygen supply at the top. Thankfully however, this one is a cut above most of the rest, as the author has a masters degree in religious studies, focusing on Mesoamerican sacred traditions, as well as being indigenous herself and from a long line of traditional Curanderas. The animals she writes about are all associated with those traditions - so there is not a single kangaroo or crystal-nosed dolphin amongst them.... thank God. The book contains traditional mythological, folkloric and sacred wisdom associations of 76 different animals, all known to the peoples of Central America, and they are written about in an engaging way for the general public to draw upon those qualities in their own sacred journey through life. It’s a really enjoyable book, with a lengthy introductory section that covers the cosmology of Central American cultures and how their sacred traditions can be of value to us today. Easy to read, and clearly laid out, the book has lots of references to ancient sacred texts and discoveries made at archaeological sites, but steers clear of any heavy weight academia. A very interesting and enjoyable read, especially if the path of the curandera speaks personally to you.

Available from Amazon etc.

TIBETAN DEMONOLOGY

Christopher Bell

Cambridge University Press

PB: 122 pages. £15.00/$23.95

ISBN: 978 11087 12 675

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

If you read the article about land spirits - sa-bdag in Tibetan - in this issue, you will have perhaps glimpsed some of the complexity of the classifications of spirit beings that the Tibetan traditions have within them. So, if you cant tell your mamo from your tsen, your khandroma from your lha, your gyalpo from your klu, or your nöjin from your nyen, this is a book for you - although I would hope you at least know what a sa-bdag is now. It is a clearly laid out book, giving descriptions of many of the types of spirits understood in Tibet, and then goes on to talk about how they manifest and are experienced by people within the culture. This second part includes looking at both voluntary [shamanistic] and involuntary [hauntings and illness] possession; about when certain spirits are considered to be active, and when they are not, in regards to the calendar; and about how certain spirits are present in the landscape - such as mountain gods etc. It was written as an introductory guide to this subject, so is an easy and interesting read, and for me it makes me think about the spirit- lore that Western culture has lost, as, ‘back in the day,’ we would have had equally as rich a knowledge of different types of spirits and how they manifested. I also think many of the spirits mentioned in this book are completely universal, and so lessons can be drawn from them, which can be applied in our own developing awareness and understanding of the hidden folk who live around us.

Available from Amazon etc.

MAGIC AND MYSTERY IN TIBET

Alexandra David-Néel

Various Editions Available From Many Different Publishers

PB: £Various/$Various

ISBN: Various.

Reviewer: Nicholas Breeze Wood

Born in 1868 and dying in 1969, the French explorer and adventure Alexandra David-Néel was a most extraordinary woman. This book by her - which is a joy to read - was first published in 1929, and so is well out of copyright - hence all the different versions available, including free to download versions online. It tells the story of her sneaking into Tibet, and then studying with Buddhist masters there, and of her personal adventures, and the extraordinary things she saw and experienced in the early C20th. It is utterly riveting, astonishing really, and her courage and derring-do - not to mention her sheer bloody-minded inquisitiveness - will make your jaw drop, Lara Croft eat your heart out. You will also be amazed by the things she tells you about Tibetan magic and mystery - the book really does live up to its name, and it is generally accurate too. As a book of spiritual high jinx adventure I highly recommend it. At some point in the near future we will have a juicy extract in Sacred Hoop..

Available from Amazon etc.

Available free online from: www.bit.ly/Neel-Magic-Mystery-Tibet

PEOPLE ON THE PATH - EVENTS DIARY

DECEMBER 2021

DEC 11: SHAMANIC JOURNEYING GROUP (ONLINE) Monthly meetings, usually 2nd Saturday of each month to foster community and deepen relationships to spirits. Pre requisite - completion of introductory course in core shamanism. With Shenoah Taylor and David Scott (07941) 544 961 shenoah@shenoahtaylor.com www.shenoahtaylor.com

DEC 12: 3 RIVERS SHAMANIC GROUP (N.E. ESSEX - ENGLAND) The Gift of Living. Contact Julia, via www.3riversshamanicgroup.co.uk DEC 13: DREAMING PRACTICE GROUP (ONLINE) Ongoing dreaming practice group one Monday evening a month 7pm to 9pm - beginners welcome. With Mandy Pullen and Jane Embleton. Contact (07805) 800 313 www.ecoshamanism.org.uk info@ecoshamanism.org.uk

DEC 18: EARTHCEREMONY: SPACE ECHO (ZOOM) If you'd like to participate in a short practice that can help ease you toward the basics of radical connection. Follow the link to reserve space. With Maria Yracébûrû www.yraceburu.org

DEC 26 - JAN 7: TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS OMENS (ONLINE) A thirteen day online course using divination and dreaming to foresee your future in 2022. We will meet five times via zoom. With Mandy Pullen and Jane Embleton. Contact (07805) 800 313 www.ecoshamanism.org.uk info@ecoshamanism.org.uk

JANUARY 2022

JAN 2: SHAMANIC SUNDAYS (ONLINE) Ongoing monthly shamanic journeying group - beginners welcome - online with Mandy Pullen. Contact (07805) 800 313 www.ecoshamanism.org.uk info@ecoshamanism.org.uk

JAN 8-9: VENUS IN THE DARK 24 HOUR WORKSHOP (GLOUCESTERSHIRE - ENGLAND) A 24 hour workshop from Saturday 5pm to Sunday 5pm working with Venus at the midpoint of her retrograde. With Mandy Pullen and Jane Embleton at a venue in the Forest of Dean. Contact (07805) 800 313 www.ecoshamanism.org.uk info@ecoshamanism.org.uk

JAN 12: SITTING WITH AN ELDER WEBINAR (ZOOM) Tune in: sacred art healing. Follow the link to reserve space. With Maria Yracébûrû www.yraceburu.org JAN 15: EARTHCEREMONY: BEYOND THE SUN (ZOOM) If you'd like to embrace your power as navigator of your life, then we'd love for you to join us at the link and connect as we become pieces on the altar of the Earth Mother's heart. With Maria Yracébûrû www.yraceburu.org

JAN 29: ANCIENT WAYS FOR NOW (ONLINE) A course of eight online Saturdays, working with the sun wheel, the lunar phases and our daily clock - we start with Imbolc. With Mandy Pullen, Jane Embleton and Freya Davies. Contact (07805) 800 313 www.ecoshamanism.org.uk info@ecoshamanism.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2022

FEB 19: EARTHCEREMONY: LAUGHING AT THE MOON (ZOOM) With the magic of ceremony, you can bring back what has been lost and feel at home once again as you face the challenges of a changing world. Follow the link to reserve space. With Maria Yracébûrû www.yraceburu.org

FEB 26-MAR 2: SPIRALDANCING LIFE IMMERSION RETREA T (CALIFORNIA - USA) Basic practices of the Yraceburu Family and how to strengthen your energetic awareness. If you'd like to participate in the lifestyle practice. Follow the link to reserve space. With Maria Yracébûrû www.yraceburu.org

NOV 14: 3 RIVERS SHAMANIC GROUP (N.E. ESSEX - ENGLAND) The Gift of Living. Contact Julia, via www.3riversshamanicgroup.co.uk

APRIL 2022

APR 25-28: THRESHOLDS OF POWER AND HEALING (SOMERSET - ENGLAND) This residential course teaches a full range of shamanic healing ways: plant-spirit healing, extraction of intrusions, and the shamanic embodiment ceremony of ‘The Mare Mother's Dream-Dance.’ Students must have fluent journey skills. With Caitlín Matthews and Margot Harrison. (01865) 407 680 janedmay@btinternet.com www.hallowquest.org.uk

Practitioner Profile ....

David Gamble-Moore

location: Pittsburgh, USA

www.strange-and-wonderful.com

Where did you first meet shamanism?

I was raised in a family that trained me on herbs and healing from birth up. My training started with tapes being played to my mother's belly and in the crib, so I could memorise sacred texts. I showed gifts that made the church uncomfortable, but the results were good, so they were split on what to do. Some thought I was demonised. They put me into seminary, to be under close watch by spiritual people at the age of five. I was given the responsibility to care for the elderly, as well as lecture on the bible, while at the same time being shunned outside my societal function. Many things in those 15 years could be called shamanic. I didn't hear the ‘S’ word until I was in my 20s when people started referring to what I was doing that way. Then I had to figure out how to be culturally appropriate in a dramatically different world, which for me meant travelling and working with different indigenous groups.

Which teachers and teachings have influenced you the most?

My grandparents.

What makes your heart sing?

When people get it.

What is the most bizarre situation that you have found yourself in on your path

We could talk for hours on this. Eating strange things around the world would be a good start.

Where on earth do you feel most at home?

Mound B, Brú na Bóinn. Dreaming of it growing up was key nourishment in keeping me alive in the hard times.

What do you do for fun?

I work out twice a day to stay sane. I enjoy my work. I'm developing an ethnoreligious healing centre in the mountains that combines ecological earth-building with anatomical geometry made from scrap and what's on the land. We're experimenting with geometrically-star-based planting, which is untested in the USA but is creating impressive biodiversity in other countries.

What is your favorite food?

I drink a bizarre amount of tea.

What music do you like?

My playlist might qualify as a ‘bizarre experience’ you asked about! It's mostly a mix of Irish-Appalachian Jesus and hillbilly music with Mongolian, Russian, and far North folk metal. I like most folk music on one acoustic instrument. I love cello.

Best book and film?

On what topic? I review an average of 150 books per year on Goodreads and expanded my house to fit more libraries. Did you see that new-ish movie, Free Guy? It's hilarious.

A message to your 12-year-old self ?

The sooner you figure out you're what's right with the world and not what's wrong with it, the better off we'll all be.

A wish for the future?

I had this vision where the communities I built flowed from my genitals as rivers, and I was a huge tree being nourished stronger as they grew. I wish for everyone to feel the peace and nourishment of being the spring and the tree both.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

IN SEARCH OF THE SHINING ONES

A LAND OF DRAGONS AND ELVES

REVERENCE FOR THE ROCKS

YOUR’RE GOING TO THINK I’M WEIRD

THE LORDS OF THE EARTH

A THING ON A STRING

THE INITIATORY SHAMANIC SICKNESS

SEEKING THE LEGEND OF YOU

CLIMBING THE SKY-HIGH TREE

REMEMBERING HANK WESSELMAN

MAGIC, IMAGINATION AND THE QUANTUM SELF

A HEALING AT WAPITI

MUSIC AND BOOK REVIEWS

PEOPLE ON THE PATH - EVENTS DIARY

Practitioner Profile ....