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

Blood
The Blue World: Water

Galina: Blood is integral to so much of the work that I do. It must be blood consciously drawn, not menstrual blood. (That is waste blood—blood that would have nourished life but is discarded; blood that takes no personal sacrifice or effort to shed. Biology is not sacrifice, and there is as much power in the intent and act of sacrifice as in the blood itself.) It must be drawn with Intent. I keep diabetic lancets in my kit at all times, and also carry a blade that, in a pinch, could be used to prick a finger. The amount isn’t what’s important. A single drop drawn with Intent will do. Blood is the most precious substance that can be given. It contains not just the essence of who you are now, but a link to every single one of your ancestors. It places you within the wyrd. It provides context for who you are and where you are at any given moment. It announces you: who you were before this life, who you are, who you have the potential to become. It is the most binding thing you can give.

I work regularly with the runes. This family of spirits expects regular offerings of blood. It cements the bond between the rune worker and this family of spirits. To give one’s blood to a spirit is to give that spirit a key to unlocking any shield you might cast. It is an act of trust and commitment. Because of the power contained within the blood, giving my blood to the runes is ample payment: it is the equivalent of paying a mercenary in solid gold. They feast upon the power contained there and in return partner with me in the work that I do. I also routinely give my blood in offering to Odin. It is a re-recognition of the bond and commitment that already exists between us. Our Gods and spirits are not squeamish. At some point, every Northern Tradition shaman or shamanic practitioner is going to have to get used to the idea of shedding a bit of his or her own blood now and again.

I have also found that for it to be the best sacrifice possible, the body from which it comes must be honored. We must value that which we give. Maegen (personal might) is carried through the blood. This is in part because of the inevitable connection to our ancestors inherent in this substance. Our veins are redolent with power. The quality of this energy is affected by how well we maintain our physical vessels. I learned, as someone who regularly works with blood magic, that far from dismissing the contribution of the body, it required that I learn to honor the body wisely and well.

Raven: Shedding blood is part of the job for me. My kit contains a bag of diabetic lancets, of course, but I have also my ceremonial belt, sewn with brass disks that have very sharp edges. If I need blood suddenly to make an oath or propitiate a spirit, I can have it instantly. It is my spiritual essence, complete with a little life force as a gift. I’ve also found that when you start propitiating in this way, you may be in the middle of doing some ritual or magical working (or perhaps just handling a natural object that could be made sacred, like a tree branch), and you suddenly “accidentally” cut yourself. I take that as a sign that Someone wants an offering now, and I don’t get angry or upset over it. Actually, these days, I tend to see any accidental shedding of blood as a sign that Someone wants Something done. Even if it’s just a hangnail or a cheese grater scraping my knuckles, I’ll ask if there’s something that I should do with this blood. If nothing comes up immediately, I’ll save it—perhaps on a bit of cloth, which is allowed to dry in a safe place—because more often than not something will happen later that week that requires a bit of dried blood to throw in a fire, another way it can be offered. I encourage spirit workers of all sorts to do this as well.

Blood is the ocean within us. When the red iron is removed, its constituents are remarkably like saltwater. It flows through us in rivers, collects in the great four-part sea of our hearts, sweeps nutrients through us, and brings waste back to be collected and removed. We are mostly made of water, and most of that water is in the form of blood. We are walking fountains of salty blood in the shape of human beings. Since the earliest times, blood has been a sacred substance. We give our own blood in offering, and it unites us with our ancestors in this great Work that we are engaged in, this restoration of our sacred, sundered traditions. Sacrifice is essential to what we do.

The Northern Tradition in general is said to be bloodier than other ancient faiths and more preoccupied with death and violence. This may or may not be true, as many ancient religions have been revived in a very euphemistic way with all their modernly unacceptable practices carefully covered up and denied. It may just be that few of the individuals who have revived Northern Tradition religion are heavily invested in making it seem unbloody or nonviolent. In any case, there is no question that the shamanic side of the Northern religion is fairly violent and bloody. Our Gods and spirits are far less willing to sanitize the relationship between life and death, blood and power, and the importance of sacrifice. We are not allowed the indulgence of contemporary squeamishness or sentiment. We’re expected to get our hands dirty, because if we can’t, we have no right to be doing what we’re doing. If we can’t connect ourselves in actual practice to the struggles of our ancestors, the cycle of life and death, sustenance and sacrifice, without turning away, we can’t do this job properly.

When most people cut their own runes, they traditionally smear blood into the carving in order to charge it, and that’s only one of the many ways that they will use it. As shamans and shamanic practitioners, we’ve learned that our blood is one of the best sacrifices to a god, although one shouldn’t necessarily hand it over to any spirit. While many Gods are fine with food or alcohol or the promise of some deed in their name, some of them want your blood, period. There is no way to get through spirit work in this tradition without learning to regularly shed a bit of blood for sacrifice. Your blood is your life force, and a bit of the code that built you. It’s the most personal thing you have to offer. Spirits like that. However, there’s no reason to open your veins every time you want to show appreciation. A little of the powerful red stuff goes a long way. We use alcohol swabs and diabetic lancets, easily available at almost any pharmacy, for blood magic; it’s clean, safe, and a drop or two is enough.

This may seem harsh, but we believe that there is no place for squeamishness in a spirit worker, especially when it comes to blood. This is a sacred and powerful substance, and we should never have an attitude of revulsion toward it. Yes, one could speculate that the fainting or fleeing reaction of some ordinary folk to blood might be considered a spiritual remnant of avoiding that which is taboo (what the Germanic and Norse people called wih or ve, too sacred for ordinary people to touch) but shamans and shamanic practitioners aren’t ordinary. We are technicians of the sacred. We are carriers of the holy with all the responsibilities and binding obligations that entails. The proper attitude of a spirit worker toward blood should at the very least be the attitude you’d take toward a horn of consecrated mead. It is powerful, it is beautiful, it is the source of Life. To let disgust color your interactions with it is blasphemous, and you should work on purging that attitude at once.

Exercise: Ancestor Stone

You will need an alcohol swab, a stone, and a diabetic lancet for this exercise. Find a stone, preferably from where you were born, but it could be from your current home. It doesn’t have to be store bought; in fact, it’s better if it wasn’t. It should be a good, simple, solid rock, about the size of your fist. Choose a stone that you feel is willing to work with you in this capacity. As you will learn in the Black World chapter, honoring the ancestors and working with them regularly is a tremendously important part of Northern Tradition practice. Many ancestor workers begin their ancestor rites by calling to their dead. This is sometimes done by tapping or pounding on a special rock with a stick. This is a good tool, symbol, and piece of shamanic technology by which to begin that process.

Find your stone and clean it off. Take a cleansing bath and set up your space in whatever way is comfortable for you prior to a small ritual working. Quietly hold the stone in your hands, and call to your ancestors. Tell them that you are ready to begin honoring them and would like to know how to do that well. Take an alcohol swab and wipe off your finger. Then prick your finger with a diabetic lancet. Smear the blood on the stone in the shape of the rune Othala. This is the rune of ancestral connections, odal land—the old word for “land”—inheritance. Speak, chant, or sing the name of this rune over and over. It is about a solid, strong, ancestral house. If you have to prick your finger again, go ahead and do that, but make sure that Othala is clearly delineated on the stone itself. Offer this to your ancestors. Tap on it with a stick (this does not need to be large; I know of one woman who uses a pretty chopstick), and call to them. Place this on your altar to be used in ancestral workings in the future.

Craft: Net Making

Once you’ve made an alliance with a Water spirit of some sort (or more than one), you can make a fishing-net altar as a focus for them. It’s okay to fold items for different sorts of Water spirits into one net altar, although if you work very intensively with them you might want to make more than one. A net altar doesn’t have to be as large as a traditional fishing net—it can be small, perhaps a foot square if you don’t have much room, and you can hang it from the ceiling or wall. Larger items can be put directly into the net, while smaller ones that might slip through the holes can be tied on to hang like a mobile. You can add Water-spirit houses, small bottles of water, ribbons in watery colors, shells, seaweed, sea floats, driftwood, river stones, bits of water-tumbled glass, dried or sculpted fish, or whatever other physical objects are connected to your Water spirits and help you form a bond with them.

The fishing-net altar also creates a bond with ancestors who fished for their sustenance and asks for their blessing on our dealings with these spirits. It is also a piece of knot magic, in which the energy is tied, knot after knot, into the piece of work. It’s good practice in creating a solid focus for the energy of a very slippery and changeable element.

Exercise: Net Altar

Start with the cordage. If you’re a spinner, you can make your own cordage out of any fiber—just spin thickly and tightly and then ply about three strands together. While you spin, commune with Water spirits. Spinning the cord while sitting by a body of water can be a good way to do this, or at least have a bowl of water from a natural source near you. If you decide to buy cordage, try to find natural fiber twine—hemp, cotton, tow flax, or some other plant-based fiber. Decide how long you want the net to be, and add about a foot to that estimation. Then cut strands of this length. How many? Assuming that your strands will be fastened about an inch apart, calculate how wide you’ll want it and cut that many.

You’ll want to acquire two sticks that are a few inches longer than your width measurement, and another stick for a shuttle (which can be a yardstick or other flat stick) about the same length. Its width should be approximately the ideal width of the spaces between knots. For example, if you want a net that is 30 inches long by 20 inches wide, with spaces of about 2 inches between knots, you’ll cut twenty-one strands (twenty plus one at the far end) that are 42 inches long (length plus a foot of extra length for knotting and tying to the poles), find two sticks that are around 24 inches long, and a shuttle stick that is around 24 inches by 2 inches.

Tie the strings to the first pole, about an inch apart. Lay it on the ground or hang it on a wall with the strings hanging down, whichever is a more comfortable position for you to work. Work the shuttle stick in between the strings just below the end stick, going over every other string and under every other string. Then tie every two strings (one “over” string and one “under” string) together in a simple overhand knot. If there is an odd number of strings and one doesn’t get knotted, that’s all right—it will be knotted on the next round. Remove the shuttle and put it through under the knots. This time, the strings that were “over” will be “under” and vice versa. Knot the strings to their neighbors on the other side—if you knotted string 1 and 2 on the first round, on this round you knot 2 and 3, and 1 is left alone. Repeat these steps over and over, moving down the strings until you have about half a foot left. You’ll see the characteristic diamond-shape fishnet pattern emerge as you work.

As you knot, put your Intent and energy into the net. If you have a water chant or short song, repeat it each time you tie a knot, or tie a knot on every line or stanza or the like. You’re literally weaving the energy of the Water spirits into the net. Tie off the strings to the second stick, hang your net from the ceiling or wall, and tie you objects onto it. Ideally, keep a bowl of water on a table underneath it. This will provide a marvelous focus for when you need to contact the Water spirits but can’t be outside to find bodies of natural water (for example, during a cold winter when lakes are iced over and the spirit is dormant).