Neolithic Shamanism: Spirit Work in the Norse Tradition - Raven Kaldera 2012
Juniper (Juniperus communis)
The Green World: Plants
Raven: While Grandmother Mugwort is the lady I call on before client workings, juniper is what I use for my own work, especially shamanic journeying on my own. Unlike feathery-soft mugwort, a juniper stick is hard and prickly, liable to pierce your hands even more in its brittle state. It must be handled with more respect. I light the stick while carefully holding my hand under it to collect any fallen needles; they will be mixed into loose incense and burned on holidays. Juniper seems to prefer the work that I do in the back woods, solitary rather than communal, although I know that he is used communally in Siberia. His scent is sharp, clean, evergreen. Where mugwort opens the inner eye, he opens the inner ear, and other senses as well. I breathe in his smoke and things sound sharper and smell stronger. I can taste everything I recently ate in my mouth. He is a harkening back to an older time when other senses dominated, when the hunter’s flared nostrils sniffed the underbrush and he pricked up the ears to wait for the prey.
Galina: Juniper was the first plant that ever truly fascinated me, in the old sense of that term. When I was a child, juniper grew all around my parents’ house and the school, and I’d pick the blue berries and sharp needles and pretend I was mixing up potions, that I was handling something magical. Little did I know, I was! Juniper has a certain dry, wry humor that I find particularly appealing. I too tend to save the use of this plant for personal endeavors, and I find that he is an excellent ally to call upon prior to undertaking any journey work. He keeps me alert and aware, and he helps me manage my resources, including my own personal energies, far more effectively and efficiently than I would left to my own devices. He has power, a great deal of power, but rarely seems to show it. He keeps it instead well hidden, tightly leashed, until it is needed. Perhaps it is my Slavic ancestry—Juniper was the sacred plant of ancient Eastern Europe—but for me, Grandfather Juniper has helped me connect very, very strongly to my dead, my ancestors, and when I feel that connection blocked for any reason, he is one of the first allies upon which I call.
Juniper is native to northern Europe, northern and southwest Asia, and parts of North America. It varies greatly in size and form, depending on its habitat. In olden times, its trunk, in areas where it grew tall, was used as a sacred wood for temple pillars, and its branches were strewn and burned in the streets against plague. Juniper was said to be good against the “king’s malady,” an unspecified complaint that has been applied to different things through the ages. It is also one of the earliest known incense plants in ancient Greece. Its berries take three years to ripen and turn blue, and this was considered a sign of its great age and wisdom.
Juniper is the sacred smudging herb of the Siberian shamans, used in much the same way as mugwort, and for the same reasons. It can be substituted for mugwort in any shamanic ritual. Its purificatory powers are similar to that of mugwort, but subtler—where her smoke evokes a summer night, his evokes the cleanliness of a crisp winter morning. He can give the impression of coldness in the air, so consider before you choose between them which would be most welcoming to the spirits who might be called upon. Where Raven lives, juniper grows as a waist-high evergreen bush, and Raven gathers the twigs in the late fall just before winter, as juniper dries best in cooler weather.
Grandfather Juniper came to Raven as a Siberian shaman in a robe covered in rattling charms. His blue-gray hair hangs down in several braids, each tipped with bells or bones. He speaks in a singsong voice, his old weathered face severe, but his eyes may twinkle at you in occasional humor. He came to Galina as a lean, dark-eyed hunter crackling with carefully controlled magic. His face was equally severe but, as with Raven’s experience, there was a wry humor there and a certain protectiveness. He has a strong connection to the oldest of forest spirits and also to the spirits of wind and frost. Getting him to help is not easy—he may well test you to find out your level of attainment, on a scale that you may not understand, and if you fail he will simply start singing and ignoring you. It is always possible to come back and try again later, though, and he may even send you a vision of what you have to do next to get farther down the “path” to his satisfaction. If he agrees to work with you, he will want a great deal of formal ceremony every time he is used, or he will consider you disrespectful. He demands a good deal more in protocol and formality than Grandmother Mugwort and is far more aware of the hierarchy of power within any given exchange. It is best that anyone seeking to work with him become respectfully aware of these things too.
Exercise: Recels II
Find a juniper bush and sit with it. In the Northeast where we live, Juniper is usually found at the edge of woodlands, under the shadow of other evergreens. Don’t be fooled by the lacy Asian junipers that are sold as landscaping plants—they are a different variant and are ruled by a different grandfather spirit. You can tell Juniperus communis by its harsh, dangerous needles. Close your eyes, smell its scent, and ask permission to cut it. If you get a sense of permission, cut several sticks carefully and bind them with natural-fiber string into a recaning stick. Unlike mugwort, you want to bind and hang juniper at once, as the needles will begin shedding once it is dry and it will become too unmanageable to bind.
When you have a dry stick, wait for the coldest day possible in your climate that is not actively precipitating. Go outside to a wild place where a small fire can be lit. If possible, light it by an older method—see the Red World chapter for ideas. Stand and salute the four directions and the four elements, the sky and the Earth, your ancestors, and anything else that gives you power. Don’t skimp on the ceremony—he appreciates it. Light your stick with your fire and smoke down the area, and yourself; then sit quietly with the scent of the smoke and your eyes closed, and listen. Don’t try to follow any one sound of the wilderness over any other; just let them wash over you. Let yourself sink into the spirit of the place, and when you are at home there, ask him to be your ally and aid you in your purifications. Then open your eyes.
Perhaps you’ll see him with your mind’s eye; perhaps you’ll only hear him. As I said above, he may ask you questions or do odd things around you to see how you respond. If you feel his presence, but he refuses to respond, ask him to tell you in a dream or waking vision (or some other very clear omen) what you need to do to become worthy of his aid, if it is possible. Then sleep with a bag of dried juniper needles under your pillow, and see if you get anything. If he does agree to aid you, thank him formally and solemnly, and ask what his price will be. When you get an answer—and he may wait a while to let you know—make sure that you do it promptly. He is a proud Greenwight and will quickly abandon you if you do not show him respect.