Neolithic Shamanism: Spirit Work in the Norse Tradition - Raven Kaldera 2012
Land
The Beginning Place: Earth
Galina: I began honoring the vaettir, the land spirits, very early on in my work. I keep a pretty bowl in a corner of my kitchen, and at least once a week, I pour out offerings of sweets, food, or drink—whatever I think they will like. Sometimes, if I am cooking something interesting, they will clamor for a bite, and I usually acquiesce. I began doing this long before I became a shaman. I’m not much of a Nature person, but some vaettir choose to inhabit homes rather than the outdoors, and it was with these spirits that I first developed a relationship. Living in New York City at the time, it took me a little longer to learn to sense and interact with the vaettir of the city and also the primary city spirit. I began with the vaettir in my home.
I think my real epiphany came when I attended an outdoor ritual at a local Pagan shop, a location that accommodated many different types of Wiccan and Pagan rituals each month. Many ritual facilitators pulled energy from the land without thought, calling on the elements, raising energy, but never, ever giving anything back. It felt horrid, really sickening. I looked around and the grass was brown, the trees and shrubs were ragged and dying. For the first time, I was bombarded by a sense of the land spirits: parched, starving, and in pain. I was so horrified that I stalked out of the ritual to the corner store and came back with bread and beer. Ignoring the ritual in progress, I went to a corner of the space and set out the bread and poured the beer over it in an offering to the vaettir of that place. They swarmed in hungry desperation. Somehow that was even more horrifying than sensing their initial deprivation. While it was all I could afford at the time, the bread and beer hardly made a dent in sating their starvation. It was a huge lesson for me in right relationship with the land, and it confirmed that the responsibility of any energy worker (as I would consider a ritual leader, priest, or priestess to be) extends far beyond simply themselves and their congregations. I learned that we have a responsibility to those beings whose homes we inhabit and tramp across daily. It was a lesson in respect. For a shaman or shamanic practitioner, that responsibility triples.
When I bought my house, one of my requirements was that the land spirits be healthy (and they were). One of the first things I did was pour out offerings to the land spirits, the house spirits, and the spirit of my home itself, which is a separate entity that rules the energy of my dwelling place. I continue to do this at least once a week as part of my regular practice. This is not burdensome, and the rewards are manifold. I find that when I am ill or exhausted, my house spirits support me. The primary genius loci of the dwelling itself has actually protected me from injury, cushioning a fall that should have broken my ankle. She quite literally caught me. If I lose things, I often ask the house vaettir for help finding what I’ve lost (and I give them something nice to drink afterward), and I rely on the land spirits outside to help protect the land.
The downside is that more and more, I dislike traveling or being away from my home and little plot of land for any length of time. I find it immensely draining. When I do travel, the first thing I do upon returning home is feed my ancestors and my vaettir. I suppose as with any spirit relationship there’s very much a quid pro quo in play; we relate to each other through a mutual enjoyment of each other’s company, gratitude, and an ongoing process of gift giving. This is the way that relationships are negotiated in the Northern Tradition, especially with spirit allies, and I learned how to do this responsibly and sensibly from the land spirits.
Raven: I have a chronic illness, and on top of that is all my high-energy shamanic work. If I didn’t have a good relationship with the landwight of my eighteen-acre farm and woods, things would go far worse for me. When we first took possession of our farm, my wife and I bonded to the landwight by giving it a few drops of our blood, as well as some dinner offerings. When I am ill, I go outside and lie on the Earth (assuming it’s not the middle of winter with three feet of snow on the ground) and ask the land spirit to give me extra energy. It has never failed me. I found that it was eager to bond with a human being who would recognize its presence and its sacredness. It is very protective—in fact, when a visitor pretended to threaten my wife with a spear that he didn’t know was actually sharp, the land spirit rose against him and broke his leg. “The ground just seemed to rise and trip me!” he complained later.
Of course, the price that I pay for this loyalty and aid is that I can’t really go away for more than a few weeks, perhaps a month at most. I will be buried on this land when I die. My body will go into its earth and become part of it. When I leave for trips, I’ve taken to bringing along a small plastic bag of home earth inside a leather sack. I place it under my motel pillow at night, and the land spirit can reach me, a little, just a thin thread through space, but it’s enough to give me a trickle of energy and help me sleep better. My family makes jokes about coffins and “native earth,” but it’s worth the price for one of the best allies I have, one whom I feel touching the soles of my feet as I go about on my land.
The ancient Romans developed the concept of genius loci, the spirit of a place, which Galina mentions in her writing above. As we explained earlier, this tradition has vaettir, or wights: spirits of the land. Celtic traditions speak of the little folk, and Shinto has its kami in every stone, every tree, every blade of grass. This awareness must inform your practice: everything is alive; everything is sentient; everything has a spirit. Our tradition is very much an animistic one, and spirits who inhabit the places we walk and, most important, the places we live, must be honored.
If you want to do any type of shamanic work, one of the first things you need to do is engage in some way with the vaettir of the land. This isn’t particularly difficult, but there are major differences between land ownership and renting. If you own the land, the obligations can be much more pressing.
Exercise: Connecting with the Land Spirit
If you live in an apartment, you will focus on getting to know your house spirits only. If you own your own property, you will need to work both with the household vaettir and the external land vaettir.
Begin by going into your kitchen. The kitchen is really the heart of the home energetically, so it’s a good place to make contact with your household spirits. Take a bowl and fill it with either milk and honey or good beer. Verbally introduce yourself to the house spirits. State your intention of getting to know them and your commitment to feeding them regularly. Ask them where they would like their bowl to go, and then quiet yourself and listen. You’ll likely get a sense of where to place the offering bowl. Once you’ve initiated the relationship, thank them, and then keep to a consistent schedule of offering. Consistency is actually better than quantity. You don’t have to bankrupt yourself in making offerings. Just share a few bites of whatever you have once a week or so.
If you own your own property, it is incredibly beneficial to develop a relationship with the land spirits as well. You may, if you are lucky, even encounter the dominant land spirit. Galina recommends preparing a mixture of good-quality tobacco, cornmeal, and blood meal; Raven uses homemade stew. Go outside and trace the perimeter of your property. Introduce yourself to the spirits of the place and sprinkle the offering mixture along the perimeter of your property. Then pour out a bottle of good, dark beer in offering. If you get the feeling that there is one specific location where you should be placing the offerings, then do so. Otherwise, continue to make regular offerings.
Alcohol is always good. Galina finds that her land spirits absolutely love spiced rum, and Raven uses his wife’s homebrew. Other offerings might be burying coins or small stones that you have imbued with good energy, or singing to them, or even giving sexual energy—lying on the Earth to do some pleasant sexual act and giving the orgasm to the land spirit. As with your house vaettir, consistency is important. Once you begin making offerings, you should make an effort to continue.