Neolithic Shamanism: Spirit Work in the Norse Tradition - Raven Kaldera 2012

Flax (Linum usitatissimum)
The Green World: Plants

Raven: My friend’s sister is one of the broken women. She has poor boundaries; she gives too much of herself; she is attracted to men who are not good to her. She lacks courage and confidence in herself. My friend worries for her and comes to me asking for help. I call upon Lina, the counterpart of Leek, the plant that flowed through the fingers of millions of women over countless years. Lina, Lina, protect her, guard her tender heart, weave her into a web of support that she need not stand alone. I fill a bag with flax seeds, and I handspin some raw linen thread to tie it closed. I give the bag to my friend and say, “Take it to her; give it to her as a good luck charm. Lina will watch over her.”

Galina: Flax is not a plant that I often interact with, for her world of women’s traditional work is not a world that I often have much to do with. For all that, I have encountered her in my ancestor work and when helping clients (usually female) who needed to strengthen their sense of self, self-worth, and personal integrity. She is very gifted at bolstering those women who, for some reason, have little sense of personal value, and she does it in a way that does not feed either vanity or immodesty. She teaches that value comes from craft, from work, from personal integrity, from those things that cannot be stripped from us with the passing of time. She has the power to connect one to generations of female ancestors who depended upon her blessings and her mercy to clothe their families. For those seeking a way to connect strongly with their female dead, I might call upon Flax for just that reason.

Flax is one of the handful of plants that goes back to the Mesolithic Near East, and it spread around much of the world during that time. It became the most extensively grown plant-based fiber crop in Eurasia. It is associated strongly with the feminine, and various goddesses are attributed to it. Home fiber production has nearly always been dominated by women—largely because, as Elizabeth Wayland Barber writes in Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times, fiber arts work well with constant child care, being portable and easily interruptible.

The spindle, and also the plant most associated with it, became the symbols of the feminine role, especially those of the bride and married woman. In the North, the ownership of flax was split between Frigga, the queen of the Gods who spins with her maidens and represents the lady of the house who supplies her family with clothing, and Holda, the Germanic goddess who is the old “spinster,” the independent cloth maker. One legend tells of a farmer who met the Flax Woman in a cave full of gold and jewels; she offered him treasure or the handful of blue flowers in her hand. He chose the flowers and brought the eternal riches of flax culture to the country.

Flax seeds are used in money spells, and placing them in your shoes wards off poverty. Mixed with mustard seed or pepper, they shield against sorcery. In central Germany, children were sent into the flax fields to dance for Holda, who would grant them growth. In Prussia, a maiden was sent into the flax fields with food as an offering to a god named Waizganthos, and she stood on a stool to show how tall the flax should grow.

Flax became the female counterpart of the masculine leek, and “linen-and-leek” charms were found at archaeological sites. Flax and leek were the equivalent of the Venus and Mars symbols today. Even though our ancestors could not have known the high estrogen content of flax’s alkaloid breakdown, flax’s feminine assignment is no accident; the Flax spirit is a very womanly creature.

Lina is almost stereotypically soft and womanly, giving and flexible, pliable in the best sense, affectionate and loving. She likes to be worked with and to be told that she is beautiful, and indeed a field of waving flax blooms is beautiful. (In the case of blue flax, water birds flying overhead have mistaken the field for a lake and tried to land on it, much to their surprise.) If she has a fault, it is that there is not much depth to her; she loves everyone who contacts her unconditionally, but her gaze is easily turned from one person to the next, and she has no loyalty—she is likely to forget you tomorrow. She is easily hurt, weeps copiously, and then quickly forgets what she was sad about.

Lina is a good ally for any woman who needs protection in a harsh world, or for a young girl who is coming to womanhood. Men who want to find a woman of a certain sort—like Lina—can ask for her aid as well, and she will look after a man’s neglected female side. In addition, in our modern culture, men who prefer to dedicate themselves to the arts of home, family, and child rearing as a career are generally denigrated and thought of as weak. However, there are a few brave souls who undertake this task because it suits who they are as people, and considering the social disapproval that they court by doing so, it takes a pretty brave heart to keep doing what they know is right for them in the face of all criticism. Lina can gently give them heart and support to keep going with nurturing duties even when all the messages surrounding them are designed to destroy their self-worth.

Exercise: Flax Seed

Flax seeds are quite edible and can be ground into powder and added to food, or used in baked goods. Menopausal women have put flax seeds in food for some time in order to raise their estrogen levels, but they are also safe for men. To work with flax, wear a linen garment. Bake some flax seeds into bread or pastry and eat them, and sit with Lina in you for a while. Sing to her, or smell some flowers, or do other things that she might like—remember, you are wooing her. Tell her that she is beautiful, and ask her to help you. Give her a good reason why she should—tell her about your need, show some vulnerability. It’s what she likes. If she responds favorably, as her price she may well want you to do something good for a woman who needs help.

Craft: Spinning

Learn to handspin with a drop spindle. (Get someone to teach you.) Handspinning wool is usually the first method learned, as it’s easiest—wool has crimp and spins up quicker. So you’ll probably end up learning on wool or some similar animal product, such as mohair or angora. However, for the Green World, one spins flax. Flax spinning is a tricky art, done with wet fingers. Once you have learned how to spin flax, spin three flax threads about an arm’s length long, then ply all three together. As you first spin and then ply, chant or sing this charm:

Lina, Lina, lead the way

To the Green World’s garden gate.

Knot the plied thread three times, once at each end and once in the middle, and wind it around a green twig. Carry it with you, and when you meet a plant spirit who is difficult to connect with, ask gentle Lina to speak to that spirit on your behalf and arrange an introduction.