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

West Wind
The White World: Air

Raven: She comes like perfume, a dancer among the leaves. Of all the Four Winds, she loves the trees the most and cannot help but stroke and play with them like pets. They all seem to react like puppies rolling over on their backs for her. She has long, long hair and draperies, and she comes in a wave of inaudible music that vibrates through your body as you breathe her in. In contrast to her brother the East Wind, her air intoxicates you and blurs your vision, heady and dizzying. In the winter, she is a delicate maiden dancing amid the snowflakes, almost ignored in the wake of her wintry older brother. In the autumn, she is a bone-thin crone wrapped in her long white hair, robed in the dry brown leaves that spin through the air, dancing with each one in a waltz of sorrow before gently lowering them to the ground, keening the dirge of the fading year.

Galina: I’ve very rarely interacted with the West Wind directly. She and I have but a passing acquaintance with each other, but then, no one gets to ally with each of the Four Winds. There’s a rich fullness to her presence that is unlike the other winds, at least from my perspective, the promise of warmth, of bounty, of an embrace. She speaks, perhaps because of my own associations of the west with the Pacific Ocean, of ocean winds and the richness of the sea, or the wealth of the harvest. I have occasionally seen her when on the beach, usually after honoring Ran, Aegir, and their daughters. She’s laughed in satisfied delight to see them hailed and gifted, and whirled around me as witness when I did so.

In this tradition, the West Wind is the ocean’s wind, because the ocean was in the west for these ancestors. Even living in a place where the ocean is in the opposite direction, you can still touch the ocean energy in her nature. Because weather moves west to east around the globe, she carries the touch of the ocean to all lands. She is particularly important to those living on the western coast of a continent. She is the song that calls the sailors, the breeze that touches two lovers at once in separate faraway places and somehow carries the memory of each others’ scent to them. She is romantic and fanciful, and loves music and things that dangle and clink and chime.

The West Wind’s gift is music. To gain her gift, you must be able to play some kind of melodic instrument with reasonable skill. It should go without saying that she prefers wind instruments over any others, but strings will work as well. Playing shamanic music on an instrument also has the side effect of bringing that instrument to life. It may already have a spirit; well-played instruments of obsessive musicians often do. (Most musicians will also admit to that; they may well have a name for their instrument and treat it like a living being. Raven’s guitar certainly has one: Madrigal.)

If you are just beginning with a new instrument, or one that does not have a spirit in it, start by calling one into it. To do this, look over the Gray World chapter, especially the section about spirit houses. That should give you an idea of how to call a spirit into your musical instrument, but really the best way is just to play it regularly with Intent, and treat it as if it has a spirit, and soon you’ll notice that it does. It may not be the spirit who you wanted for it, but it will be the spirit who the Universe feels is appropriate. If you’ve never played an instrument before, don’t just choose one without handling it. Go to a music store and handle the various instruments. It’s possible to love the sound of an instrument dearly, but to have no connection with it when it’s in your hand. Instruments are very special partners in this work. Take the time to choose one carefully.

Moving energy with music is different from moving it with the voice only in that it is a partnership rather than a solo activity. You and your instrument must be able to work together smoothly, and if that means that you need to practice for three years before you can approach this exercise, so be it. Not everyone is a musician, and the West Wind’s gift is not for all people, although we’ve found that she usually enjoys the effort and the good-faith endeavor. It’s the same with other skills that are co-opted for shamanic work—you’d better be good at the skill first, so that your attention can be on the process of guiding the energy rather than the process of doing the activity. However, if you are good enough at making music that you can do it without concentrating fully on the activity—which, every musician will tell you, requires a lot of practice under your belt in order to build up the body memory—then you can approach the West Wind and ask her to aid you in shamanic music.

Galina was trained for sixteen years as a classical musician, and she is not easily able to use the West Wind’s gift in magic or as a shaman. It’s a grace, and no one gets them all. Still, something is to be gained by exploring music, even if only to develop a greater appreciation of its power. As you are studying and practicing, you can still be honoring the West Wind. Take her offerings, such as playing her music on a CD player.

Exercise: Playing the Wind

Once you’re good enough at playing that you feel ready to speak to the West Wind, go to a solitary place on a day when the wind is coming from that direction and play for her. Give her something sweet—I found that she likes sweetened milk or milkshakes tossed into the air, and small cookies—and then dedicate your musical performance to her and give her some entertainment. To be courteous, introduce your instrument by name before you begin; this will show her that you do actually respect this work as a proper partnership. If you can feel her presence, both on an energetic level and a physical one (she’s touching you, and the West Wind is very affectionate), ask her to help you and your instrument learn to move energy outward for a useful purpose. Tell her the worthy ways in which you will use this gift.

Then you play. The West Wind will slowly and subtly guide you, helping you bond more closely to your instrument, helping the two of you move the energy out of you and into and through your musical partner with focused Intent. Don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time or if you can’t hold on to it for more than a minute or two. If you’ve come this far with music, you know that practice is what works and that no one ever got it perfect on the first try. You may also ask her to bless your instrument and its spirit.

Afterward, thank the West Wind for her help, and put something up outside your door or window for her to play with—she loves wind chimes and other tinkly things. She also likes ribbons of the colors of ocean and soft twilight—violets, purples, blues, and sea greens. You can hang them up outside or you can wear them, hanging from a hat or clothing in some way that allows her to play with them when you’re outside walking around.