Connecting with the Gods, Ancestors, and Vaettir Outside Part 2

Growing food and connecting with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir related to it is an area of life that, as a shaman, I have only recently had the time off to devote to it.  In previous years my schedule was so up-and-down or constantly changing that getting out and helping with the garden consistently was damned near impossible.  Last year we could not even maintain a garden outside of the yearly asparagus harvest due to our home’s varying schedules.  This year I have a far more stable schedule, so now I can give the time to get in the garden and learn from the Holy Powers and my living family.  I did not realize it till sitting down and writing it, but that is one hell of a burden lifting off of me.  I have enough hours to keep up with bills and enough time off consecutively so I can get things done.

We actually have a good deal of plants in the ground this year.  Lots of tomatoes, green beans, and beets.  We also planted squash, zucchini, and a few herbs.  Provided the birds lay off of them for a bit, we should have a good harvest.  In past time where we have planted equivalent amounts of tomatoes, green beans, and similar plants, we’ve had a good-sized stockpile even after giving away some of the harvest to family and friends.  It’s one of the reasons I am looking forward to the fall harvest.

There’s more to connecting with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir outside than just my garden or the local parks, though.  As I mentioned in the previous post, Skaði has charged me to learn how to hunt, to skin and dress a kill.  I have a wonderful Aunt with a standing offer to teach me to bow hunt after I take a safety course.  I am also blessed with a good friend who has offered to teach me the same.  With the amounts of time I have off every week I am actually far closer to making this a reality and fulfilling the rest of the obligations I have with Skaði.

The fertility of the landvaettir is a blessing, one that I believe we carry as an obligation to keep in partnership with Them.  It feeds us, nourishes us body, mind, and soul as surely as we help nourish the landvaettir by living well with Them.   The soil, the plants, and the animals all deserve their due, their respect.  Whether we are hunting, fishing, gardening, farming, ranching, or foraging, without the Gebo of honoring the cycles around us and taking care in our work, we do deep harm.  We can see the effects of this breakdown in how neonicotinoids are harming honey bees, how fracking is poisoning the water we drink, and how the elimination of predators has deeply upset the balance in regards to deer and similar animal populations.

Paying attention and honoring the cycles of life and seasons brings us into closer alignment with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir.  Given a good number of the surviving holidays we have are directly tied to seasonal and harvest cycles, it also helps to place them into a context that makes a good deal more sense than celebrating because a date rolls around.  I think as polytheists, Heathens and otherwise, carry traditions forward even more variations will emerge based on the climates where we live.  Truly partnering with the Holy Powers in our lives is working with the cycles we have rather than the cycles we are told by a book we ought to be imitating.  Many of us live in places where the seasonal cycles are different from, or simply do not match those that have survived in lore and archaeology.  If we are to live in good Gebo with the Holy Powers we will need to adapt to the way things are.

Part of living in better Gebo with the Holy Powers also requires us to look at how we live outdoors.  What do our practices like gardening, farming, ranching, and the like have on the soil, the plants, the animals, and the water?  How does water flow?  Are the lands our homes rest on full of one-species non-native grass?  Why?  How can we better encourage native species to flourish?  How can we encourage the fertility in land, plant, and animals that makes life possible?   How do we live in good Gebo with the world around us?

I found myself seeing a lot of these answers in person at the Amma Center Amrita Farms in Ann Arbor and from the MI Folk School.  More importantly, Sylverleaf and I were able to get hands-on experience with these answers. We spent a day at the Amma Center with the people working on the farm area, permaculturists who have worked a great deal to help the land distribute water more effectively, and to utilize the space to greater effect for food production without using pesticides or insecticides.  We explored the creation of berms and swales, hugelkultures, crater gardening, the use of a keyline plow to make small keyline swales, the creation of compost tea, and small-scale orchard creation.

For those unfamiliar, here are some links for what berms and swales are, and how they are made.  This PDF explains berms and swales in pretty simple terms with explanations of when they are and are not good design ideas. This link has a good overview and video on swales.  This link shows berms and swales in action on a project for a front yard rain garden.  The work Sylverleaf and I did at Amrita Farms’ main area for berms and swales was to help transplant some apple trees out to areas better suited to them.  The staff led us on a survey of the berm and swale systems, and how it solved the Farms’ water flow problems.

What I want to stress here is that this is not fighting the landscape or imposing a system the land rejects.  Rather, it is helping the land to better work with water runoff to help solve water allocation issues one might have.  In many cases the berms serve not only as physical landscapes for the water to run over, but also a gathering point for plants to help combat soil erosion, helping to increase the ability of the land to keep its shape and provide fertility to the soil.  The swales give the water places to go without disrupting the landscape, and it helps catch water in the soil in a way that is efficient and works with the land rather than dumping all the water into a low point where it can attract mosquitoes and other insects.

In another section of the Farms, keyline plowing was used.  This link has a good overview on the technqiue.  It was done in an area where full-blown berms and swales would not have been desirable, and allowed for water to flow into the cut channels in directions that helped maximize water retention, and guided excess water to a pond.  Again, what was emphasized was this worked with the flow of the earth, with the keylines acting as guides for the water to flow.  While the Farms used laser-guided equipment and had a tractor come out to do the keyline work, we were shown that land surveying can still effectively be done by hand using simple survey techniques, and that (depending on the soil and one’s resources) having animals do the keyline plowing would not be out of the question.

The last, and for me the most fun I had at Amrita Farms, was when we made a hugel.  Hugelkultur is a beautiful way to compost wood, and a description of it is here.  Since we have a decent amount of deadfall at our home I am looking at making a hugel, though far smaller than the one we made at the Farm.  That’s the beauty of methods like these: most can be made to suit far smaller pieces of property than farms, and the projects that required mechanized equipment like the berms and swales, can be done by hand with a shovel or pick.

What I bring home from these workshops, again and again, is that there are far more healthy and wise ways to live in Gebo with Jörð than what capitalism and agribusiness continues to push at and on us.  These ways are far more accessible than one might think at first; permaculture can scale with one’s home and land (even if that land is, say, a community garden space), and hugelkulture can use great dead trees, or twigs as needed.  These ways, found in permaculture, gardening, various types of natural home-building, and so on, are ways we can live upon Her that helps us as people live more whole lives, and in doing so, bring us closer to the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir.  If we take in these ways and help to foster them in others, we can help our future generations survive and thrive.  Taking these steps to restore our connection and relationships with Jörð and the landvaettir takes the vital connections that were sundered in and between our communities, and seeks to tie them together even stronger,  I can think of precious few gifts we could give the next generation than a lived, healthy, powerful relationship with the Holy Powers, and lived, healthy, powerful, relationships with our communities, both grounded in trust, respect, and honor.

As I mentioned in Part 1, as I become inspired (or pushed, as the case may be) to write, I will add to this series of posts.

Connecting with the Gods, Ancestors, and Vaettir Outside Part 1

My indoor and outdoor vés and worship spaces get more time from me depending on the time of year, and where I am feeling drawn.  Given that now is the planting season, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time outdoors.  My family maintains a main vé outdoors in a small grove of trees where I have placed Odin’s godpole and where our family makes our Sacred Fires.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, Hela and Niðogg’s vé is the compost heap.  When we finally spread the soil after a year of adding to it, it was dark black, and had a rich sweet smell to it.  Where animals have been buried, all in the main vé, I also feel Hela’s presence.

This entire last week or two I’ve been outside quite a bit with the family in the large garden we’ve been prepping, tilling, then planting.  Every time we go out there is a time to pray, every action out there an opportunity to come closer to the Gods, Ancestors, landvaettir, and other vaettir.  It doesn’t replace the offerings I make.  I make those too.  It might be a glass of water on a vé, it might be smoke offered from tobacoo or mugwort in a sacred pipe, those same herbs placed in/upon the Earth, or an offering from me as I do the work such as a song or praise.

Today, as I dug each small hole for the green beans, I prayed to Jörð, Freyr, Gerda, Freya, the landvaettir, the Disir, the Väter, and the Ancestors.  I sang songs I was taught in Ojibwe, and I sang songs for my Catholic Ancestors, who were coming on strong today, with my Dad as we planted.  The days when I dug the Earth I sang songs for Jörð and the landvaettir.  Increasingly, making songs for the Holy Powers is becoming a part of my offerings alongside the others.  I like it.  It’s an offering of breath and creativity, since a lot of the songs I’m making up the verses as I go along.

The Ancestors have been there every time, and fairly thick.  I’m not surprised; up until my generation, most of my family on both my parents’ sides have come from farmers.  It makes sense that I would feel a lot more of Them during similar activities, and that They are pushing for me to get land, animals, and the like.  I felt some different Ancestors around me, though, when my Dad hit a mole with the rototiller Friday.  Rather than simply bury it, my Mom actually suggested I skin it.

I asked the mole if it would give me permission to skin it.  When she agreed, I set up a space for it in the main vé.  I asked Ansuz to help me cleanse, Gebo to help me ground, and did my usual grounding, centering, cleansing, and shielding work.  This would be my first time skinning an animal; I wanted to do it right.  Given Dad’s done it before, he showed me how to sharpen the knives I might use, and briefly explained the cuts I would need to make.  I returned to the vé, and made prayers to the Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, and landvaettir, asking for Their help.  At first I was surprised by Skaði’s Presence.  Then, I remembered: A long time back when I was first introduced to Skaði by Odin during my ordeal on the Tree and work in the Nine Worlds, She had tasked me with, among other things, learning how to make a kill, skin, and dress it.  While I do still need to do this in full, She let me know this was a good first step.

It turns out skin is damned tough.  I knew the knives were sharp, but this being my first time out, I wasn’t expecting how tough, especially on a little thing like a mole.  I was frustrated.  So, I returned and asked Dad if there was something I was doing wrong.  He came out, looked at it, and then mentioned to me that he usually started from a cut along the throat in bigger animals.  In this case, he felt I should behead the animal.  I asked the mole for permission to do so, and when the mole gave it, I did.  I took a breath, made some prayers, and focused.  I looked at the knives in front of me, and finally went with the smallest: a slim, curved steel knife with a deer antler hilt, a wolf burned into the pommel.  Again, I took a breath, made prayers, and focused.  I felt an Ancestor help guide me.  “This way,” Their hand on mine, showing me.  I cut, felt the blade slide through skin, flesh, flesh the crunch of bone, cartilege as I severed the mole’s head.  I thanked it for allowing me to do this, to take its body and make something from it.  To learn from it.  I set the head gently aside, bowed my head to it, and proceed to skin the rest of it.  An occasional ‘Good’ or ‘Careful’ from one of the Ancestors.  It went a good deal faster than I thought it would, and in about half an hour or so, I had it skinned and fleshed without damage to the fur or the skin.  I heard a ‘Good’ from Skaði and heard no more from Her, though Her Presence lingered until the mole was buried.  I pinned the skin to a good-sized chunk of wood, stretched it, and placed pickling salt on it.  I will be getting some alum as well, and following instructions to make this a pliable, tanned skin.

When its skin was safe in a dark corner of the garage, I returned to the sacred grove with a shovel, and offerings.  I asked the landvaettir for permission to dig, and once They gave it, and I ‘felt’I had found the spot, I dug a small hole.  I prayed to Hela and Niðogg, asking Them to accept the mole.  I placed the body inside, put down some tobacco and mugwort in offering to the mole and covered the hole.  I then gave some in offering to the Gods, Ancestors, and landvaettir.  I washed the ceramic tile I had used, and went inside.  I made prayers as I physically cleaned the knives and my hands, thanking the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir for Their patience, willingness to teach, and the sacrifice of the mole.

It’s interesting in reflecting on it.  The life-generating cycle of prepping, tilling, and planting was started just a few days after this animal was killed and skinned.  I approach both in a sacred way because both are sacred.  I was not inspired to give songs for the mole; I was inspired to give reverent silence and my full care to the process of skinning, of not damaging the gift that she had given me.  I was inspired to sing loudly during the prepping, the tilling, and the planting.  Different sacred encounters with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir ask us to take different attitudes, actions, and offerings.  Perhaps the next time I skin an animal it will ask for a song, or for many songs.  Perhaps it will ask that I dance.  Perhaps Skaði or Freyr will ask that I dance, or sing, or to be silent.  Perhaps the next time I prepare a field, or till a field, or plant, the landvaettir, or the Gods will ask for my silence, a Sacred Fire, a ritual from my family, or perhaps They will ask for the same offerings year after year.

In connecting with my Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir outside, it has made me realize just how much I rely on Them.  It made me realize in very grounded terms that I am vitally connected with the Holy Powers in very down-to-Earth ways: that Freyr is in the asparagus as well as His statue, that He helps to give life to the land, and that Gerda is both present on the Gods’ altar and in the garden giving life to the land and growth to the plants.  I understand the landvaettir are  the asparagus, tomatoes, beans and squash as much as They are the trees of the sacred grove, the grass of the lawn, the animals that dart about them, and the rich earth of the garden itself.  In understanding this, I understand the landvaettir are part of the house and the land, and that this land (and a good deal more I may never see, i.e. farms, mines, production areas, etc.) will help to sustain my family and I.  In understanding this connection I know that the Ancestors are right here with me, supporting me in the work at hand, and that if I listen They will help guide me in what to do.  All of these things reinforce the understanding that the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir are as vital a part of our communities as its living human members are.

Connecting and understanding my relationship with the Holy Powers is knowing, and especially acknowledging, that I need these connections spiritually as well as physically.  In putting my hands in the Earth and asking the Holy Powers to help me grow the food, I asking Them to help me be a shaman that, paraphrasing the words of my dear friend Two Snakes, “can make the beans grow”.  I am asking Them not only to help me feed my family and I physically, but feed us spiritually as well, living in good Gebo with the Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir, and furthering my path as a shaman.

This post is getting a little lengthy and starting to flow away from the topic at the start, so I think I’ll split this up into two posts.  If I get the inspiration maybe this will become a series of posts.

Outdoor Practices and Shrines: The Shrine to Hela and Niðogg

With the Spring finally here in Michigan, I thought I would take some time to go over some of the practices I keep outside.

I maintain an active shrine to Hela and Niðogg. It is rotten, and full of life-giving soil.  Snakes have lived in it, and it gives much-needed nutrients back to the soils when we incorporate it in the gardens we keep. It is a compost pile. When I take the compost to it I make a simple prayer: “Hail to the Gods of Death and Rot. Hail Hela and Niðogg.” This one of many devotional acts one could offer to these powerful, and sometimes maligned and misunderstood Goddesses.

Given so many of us are going to Hela’s realm, whether ourselves or others, I would think cultivating a good relationship with Her would be a good thing to do. She is a holy Goddess who houses our Dead, who gives the Ancestors comfort and rest. It is rude to denigrate the Hostess of our Dead. So I praise Her, and thank Her for housing my Dead, for letting Them speak with me, for helping me to hear Them.  In building closer ties to death and Hela, we better appreciate and revere life.  Through Her we connect with our past and our Ancestors.  For that alone She should be given deep respect and praise.  

Niðogg’s presence in the world, eating the poison given to the Tree, gnawing at the dead roots of Yggdrasil and traitors and oathbreakers is one which is needed. It is not pretty. It is often thankless. She is the eater of our most rotten Dead. The liars, the oathbreakers, the traitors. She eats the poison and the rot from the Tree, and helps the Tree to grow even as She does eat at the healthy roots.  In appreciating the poison Niðogg takes on, it should inspire actions to prevent the poisons that ravage our planet, our nations, our homes, and our communities.

Yet, like a great many small or simple devotional acts that build on themselves, the results are wonderful, perhaps profound, when built well and with frequency. The effects on the garden, when we do these things, are good. Our Gods do not exist only in some ‘out there’ sense. If we are living in good relationship with Them, that will have some kind of effect in this world. It does not need to be dramatic; Hela and Niðogg do not come burrowing out of Jörð to declare to me the compost is good and sacred. It is sacred because the respect for Jörð, the landvaettir, Hela, and Niðogg is present whether I am alone, or my son or his mother helps offer the compost. It is sacred because I have maintained the shrine to these Goddesses, and the landvaettir have allowed the space to let us work with Hela, Niðogg, and Them so we may eat. We are the landvaettir’s guests and friends. We have invited the Gods to come to this place. In doing this, our family has chosen to be a bit closer to death and rot, and to build respect and good relationships with both.  Doing this we invite the Goddesses to share in Their blessings with my family and I.

The Shrine to Hela and Niðogg in the backyard.

Adorations of Jörð

I adore You, Fjörgyn

I adore You, Hlóðyn

I adore You, Midgard

I adore You, Mother Earth

I adore You, Bountiful Goddess

I adore You, Ocean-Carrier

I adore You, Green-Grower

I adore You, Desert-Crafter

I adore You, Glacial-Kissed

I adore You, Deep Cavern

I adore You, Rolling Hill

I adore You, Windswept Plain

I adore You, Mighty Mountains

I adore You, Great Lakes

I adore You, Tectonic Shifter

I adore You, Shaking One

I adore You, Constant-Spinner

I adore You, Balanced Home

I adore You, Fecund Ground

I adore You, Blasted Trees

I adore You, Frozen Peaks

I adore You, Eroding Crags

I adore You, Magma-Holder

I adore You, Molten Core

I adore You, Chaos and Order

I adore You, Cradle of Life

I adore You, Cradle of Dead

I adore You, Daughter of Annarr

I adore You, Daughter of Nótt

I adore You, Lover of Odin

I adore You, Mother of Thor

I adore You, Whose skin is the Earth we live on

I adore You, Whose flesh we burrow in to find metal and mineral

I adore You, Whose bounty is shared at each table, each plate, each bowl

I adore You, Whose rain blesses Her fields, allowing us to live

I adore You, Whose many children bless us with their lives, their milk, their fur, bone, and bodies

I adore You, Whose Children speak to us through animal, bud, leaf, flower, and chitin

I adore You, Whose Children speak to us through land, from cavern to highest mountain

I adore You, Whose Children speak to us in grove, expanse of desert, and our homes

I adore You, Whose Children live in the walls of our homes, the ground, all that allows us to live

I adore You, Whose Children allow us to live in all these places, whether through fiber or fur

I adore You, Whose blood powers the engines of our technology

I adore You, Whose flesh gives that technology form

I adore You, Who allows us live despite our burgeoning population

I adore You, Who suffers our negligence

I adore You, Whose body is ravaged by our greed

I adore You, Whose rainforests are at risk

I adore You, Whose Children still risk themselves for the sake of Your wild places

I adore You, Whose Children still risk themselves for the sake of Your sacred places

I adore You, Whose Children fight each day to reclaim our balance with You

I adore You, Whose Body is neglected and abused by Her Children

I adore You, Whose Flesh is rent and discarded without care for Her pain

I adore You, Whose skies, seas, rivers, oceans, are full of Death and Life itself there is threatened

I adore You, Who gives Life despite all these calamities

I adore You, Who still gives us Life despite all these abuses

I adore You, Who treats humanity with patience

I adore You, Who demands we change our ways

I adore You, Who brooks no path but Her own

I adore You, Who, in the face of our technology, shows our vulnerability

I adore You, Who, in the face of despair, shows us kindness

I adore You, Who is drought and doom, fecundity and flowering

I adore You, Who, if we listen, can lead us to Harmony with You

I adore You, Who, if we observe, can show us a new life

I adore You, Who, if we act, gives us the chance to make our lot, and that of our neighbors, better

I adore You, Who is my home

I adore You, Who is my Mother

I adore You, Who is the Mother of Midgard

I adore You, Midgard Herself

From barren waste to blooming garden,

From old-growth forest to icy tundra,

I adore You, Jörð

Wandering in a New Direction

I’ve known that Odin would want me to wander at some point.  He’s told me that since He started working with me.  I’ve asked Him, myself, other Gods, spirit allies, and friends, physical and not, what roads this could go down.  Now I finally have the first piece of that puzzle.  It was a relatively simple click to get it into place, but it took me hearing it and seeing it for it to fall into place.

I believe in living as sustainably as one can, from recycling and reusing as much as possible, to living as much on the land as possible.  Yet, I have no job, and no training on how to do a lot of the things necessary for it.  Sure, I’m learning to grow vegetables and herbs (I finally have my own space for herbs!) and I am willing to learn how to raise chickens, goats, and the like.  I’d be willing to learn every aspect of life that my folks grew up with on their farm.  Yet I didn’t even know how to start; I kept thinking “what about the price of having a home?  The utility costs?  The costs of getting everything around?”  Then, some friends of mine from my local shaman gathering told me about training they are taking this fall with the Earthship project.  I asked about it, and as they spoke, I could almost feel that puzzle click into place.  Holy shit.  It made sense.

Don’t get me wrong, at first I was skeptical as hell.  I thought How can you live so completely off-grid?  What about water, food?  Turns out the way the place is laid out you actually can grow food year-round in-house.  Water is collected from melting snow and rainwater, and electricity is made by wind and solar means.  There’s a lot more, but the website goes into more detail and gives it more justice than I can.  To put it simply, my fears were laid to rest.  These people built shelters that are designed to be earthquake resistant for the people of the Andaman Islands, and they built homes for Mexican families in the wake of Hurricane Rita.  The walls were built out of ordinary materials that we Americans have in plenty: old tires, plastic bottles and aluminum cans, and cement, with plaster for the outward finish.  It seemed unreliable when I first heard about it, yet they stand tall and strong against even monsoon weather, as experienced in the Andaman Islands.

I wasn’t just skeptical for practical reasons, but spiritual too.  After all, it was kind of convenient that the answer fell in my lap.  That said, I don’t much believe in ‘coincidence’ anymore; more often than not, when I do pay attention to them, positive outcomes ensue.  I tend to kick myself later when I don’t pay attention.  I did a few readings to confirm that I wasn’t just listening to sock-puppets in my head, while the next was for the next as-important question: why?  The two Runes that I remember best from that reading (it was about a week ago) were Naudhiz the Rune of Need, and Othila  the Rune of Ancestral Land.  Naturally, there are other interpretations for these two Runes, but again, these two may as well have hit me in the face.  Of course, I could have just read it as NO from their Futhark-to-English rough letter translation.  I didn’t read it like that because neither were merkstave, and there wasn’t anything from the previous Runes to doubt the message screaming from them to me.  Still, I had another person who I hadn’t had any of this explained to her to read my cards just to check.  This time the message did club me over the head, and several times.  I needed to do this.  I needed to go for training, and it was part of my next step in my life in all its forms.  Okay, message received, stop the clubbing.

I asked Him why this would be part of my Wandering.  He told me that I needed the skills before I hoped to set out on my own, that having all the spiritual tools were good, but I “needed to learn to live in Midgard”, and that is what has largely been missing from the past couple of years.  I’ve lived, by and large, on others’ resources, time, and good will.  If I am to live in the future as a person, father, shaman, priest, and Pagan, I needed to change my relationship to the world.  If I believe in sustainability as more than a pretty word, as a lifestyle and as part of my spirituality, then I need to live it.  By learning these techniques I hope to live sustainably.  By learning all I can, I hope to live closer, and in better relations with the landvaettir, the Vanir, the Jotun, and the Aesir, and other Gods who have called to me.  It’s my hope that by Wandering here, I am able to leave a land worth inheriting to my children, with a right relationship with the landvaettir, Gods, and people, who call it home with me.  This may not be the end of my Wander, but it certainly is the first of many steps.