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

The Black World: Ancestors

We live because you lived,

Because you wrote, we have your wisdom;

Your blood runs through our veins,

Your brightest flames our inspiration,

We grew because you cared,

Because you dared to swear survival,

We know the road behind,

The threads unwind, the hope we find,

Because you lived.

FROM “BECAUSE YOU LIVED” BY GEORDIE INGERSON

Many traditions pay special homage to their ancestors, to those who have walked the spiritual path before us, contributing to the common threads of being that we all share. Honoring one’s lineage is the first and one of the most important steps in developing a strong spiritual foundation. It is a place of beginning. For shamans, spirit workers, and shamanic practitioners, it is essential.

The word ancestor is a very broad term. Ancestors may include those who died for you, or who were close enough to be spiritual kin (teachers, mentors, friends). They may include relatives or colleagues from past incarnations. They may even include the Elemental Powers, who are our oldest ancestors. If you are adopted, you have your maternal and paternal biological lines as well as your maternal and paternal adopted lines. In fact, you have ancestors back to the time the first ancient critter hauled itself out of the primordial ooze to try a little land living. You don’t need to know all their names. They know you. They are connected to you by blood, bone, marrow, hope, sacrifice, and spirit.

We want to take a moment to note that no one lineage is better than another. Paying homage to the ancestors is not, in any way, shape, or form an excuse for racism, which goes against the sacred practice of diversity found in all of Nature. Rather, it is a means of honoring those who came before us, whose actions and lives helped create and shape our own. It means honoring those who shed blood for us, who suffered and sacrificed so that we might remember, live fully, and learn to craft lives of honor. It is an acknowledgment that we are all connected through the Holy Powers, through the cycle that Hela—the Goddess of Death—governs. We honor the continuity of divine presence throughout the course of our lives. We honor their strength, courage, wisdom, and struggles, and we seek to learn from them. If in your life and in this work you do nothing else but honor your dead consistently and well, you are doing something powerful, important, and meaningful . . . maybe even crucial. It all begins here. Power, wisdom, and wholeness all come from our roots, and our ancestors are those roots.

In the Northern Tradition, we have several different types of ancestors. The word Dis (plural: Disir) refers specifically to the female guardian ancestors of one’s line. They are women who have chosen not to be reborn, but to dedicate themselves to the task of watching over their descendants. Disir are very important because they are guardians of the luck you gain through your genetic line. In this tradition we believe that luck relies particularly heavily on the female line in passing from one generation to the next. We also have the word Alf (plural: Alfar) for the male ancestors. Neither of us use this word much because it may also refer to a denizen of Alfheim, the elven realms, and we prefer to avoid the confusion. Usually, we refer to our Disir, our foremothers and forefathers, and our collective ancestors, and that seems to do the trick.

Our blood kin are the ancestors of the body, of Earth. We also have the ancestors of the heart, which corresponds to Water. These include foster parents, beloved friends, stepparents, deceased spouses, and other close companions. If you loved them and they loved you, they count. Then there are the ancestors of the mind, which corresponds to Air—teachers, writers, and other people whose words made you think and who expanded your mind, who you respect and perhaps wish you’d known. Finally, there are ancestors of the spirit, of Fire—people who have done great deeds that inspired you and caused you to keep going on your own path. You can see how an ancestor altar could be set up with different people’s names and pictures in different directions.

One does not evolve spiritually in a vacuum. We as shamans and shamanic practitioners are tradition builders, whether we want to be or not. Some of our ancestors lived lives steeped in the very traditions we’re struggling to reconstruct. They can help us. They have the wisdom of having an instinctive, organic understanding of why things need to be a certain way. Moreover, they are on our side. Most of our ancestors want us to succeed, to thrive, to be happy. There’s tremendous protection and support when, through proper honoring of one’s dead, one is able to tap in to that.

Much of our luck flows from our dead. You can build a strong spiritual house by maintaining the integrity of your lineage. Integrity means honoring them properly, engaging with them regularly, and living in a way that does them and ourselves honor. Our ancestors and the vaettir of our world can assist us in our journey and in our spiritual work. We can learn much from them, but only if we empower them to act with us. Ancestors are not Gods, and they must be invited and given a place in our lives.

A brick house cannot be built without many single bricks, which cannot be secured without mortar. Paying homage to one’s ancestors (and also to the spirits of the land) is the mortar and clay from which those bricks are formed. We begin in the physical because we are physical beings. The senses of touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste are the primary filters through which we experience our world. Eventually, like strengthening a muscle, our ability to sense and interact with the unseen, the nonphysical, develops and grows. An important step in growing strong and whole and healthy in this tradition, however, is honoring those who have struggled to do exactly that before us. This process is helped by the fact that many spirits choose to stay as guides and watchers, and many people have at least one strong ancestral spirit who has been given the responsibility of guidance for their soul. Our dead will work as hard to facilitate communication with us as we do with them, and usually one particular powerful spirit steps forward to order one’s ancestral house and keep things smoothly running.

There are two questions that we get asked more than any others when the subject of ancestor veneration arises: What if I’m adopted? and What if the people in my family were horrible human beings?

The first is easy: great! As we noted above, if you’re adopted, you have two sets of ancestors. Honor both lines, and see who steps forward to speak for you. The second is a bit more complicated, but ultimately everyone has at least one person in his or her line who was a terrible person. We can learn from our ancestors’ failures as much as from their successes. Rest assured, you are not alone in having unsavory people in your ancestral line. It happens. You don’t have to honor the abusive uncle or the bad parent. Go around them. You have many, many ancestors; just go back as far as you have to in order to make the connection. Eventually, with help from their side and hard work from yours, it will all sort itself out.

Ceremonies called ancestor elevation rites can be done by a sincere descendant of a suffering, aggressive, angry, or abusive dead relative in order to bring that soul to a better state where the person understands, repents, and is willing to do what must be done in order to make things right. Sometimes it’s easier to help difficult relatives after they are dead than while they are still living and trapped by things like brain chemistry, past history, and circumstances. If you are interested in the work of ancestor elevation, it is explained on this website: www.northernpaganism.org/shrines/ancestors/writings/a-ritual-to-elevate-the-troubleddead.html.

In addition, we very strongly recommended Weaving Memory: A Guide to Honoring the Ancestors, by Laura Patsouris (Asphodel Press, 2011). It’s an excellent guide to this work by a very experienced and skilled ancestor worker. It will teach you pretty much everything you need to know to delve into these fundamental practices.

One side note: In addition to personal ancestors, those of us who are shamans, spirit workers, shamanic practitioners, clergy members, diviners, warriors, healers, and so forth also have what we like to call our lineage ancestors. This isn’t our physical lineage but our spiritual one. Let’s use divination as an example. As diviners, we are the most recent practitioners in a long line of men and women who have committed their lives to practicing this sacred art in service to their Gods, ancestors, spirits, and community. The diviners who came before us are our elders in the work. It is a sacred and holy thing. We are, for lack of a better term, their descendants. It doesn’t matter if the tradition was lost for a time. We’re picking up those threads. We can learn much about how to do this work right not only from our regular ancestors, but from our lineage ones as well.

Galina: I struggled for over ten years to develop an engaged ancestral practice. I was very lucky too; I was living at the time with a roommate who practiced Santeria. One day while I was doing a bit of magical work, Hela “showed up” and chastised me coldly. Who was I to do this type of work without first paying homage to my dead? Who was I to think that I could stand alone without showing any respect to those who paved the way for my successes? Who was I to think that I had no obligations to anyone but myself? Who was I to disrespect the dead? I didn’t need to be told twice. When I told my roommate what had happened, he brought me to his teacher, and she taught me the basics of maintaining an ancestral altar. I struggled and stumbled along for years. I didn’t have a particularly good relationship with my birth family, and it was hard to really form that connection. Eventually things sorted themselves out, and when my adopted mother died, I found that she stepped forward and finished putting my ancestral house in order. Now I actually function as an ancestor worker, meaning that part of my spiritual work is teaching others how to honor their dead, helping to heal ancestral lines, and honoring the forgotten dead.

Raven: As I described in the last chapter, at some point in my training an ancestral spirit showed up in my house. He is very old—around 1,300 years dead—and had been a Saami noaide, or spirit worker. He was half-Norse on his mother’s side, and his Nordic mother introduced him to some of her Gods, including Hela. He told me that she died when he was around puberty, by which time he already knew that he would be a noaide. In exchange for his mother’s safe passage and peace after death, he offered to serve Hela himself for part of his life and again after he died. I can’t make out his name through the language barrier—the dialect of Saami that he speaks has since died out—so I call him Uncle Noaide, and give him stew and tea and cakes. He taught me how to use a drum for healing, how to observe the plants in an ecosystem, and many other things. He is, in effect, the ancestor of my lineage, although he did not have children himself and I am descended through his sister’s family. But he is my elder, sent here to teach me, and I respect him.

Exercise: Setting Up an Ancestral Altar

For the Black World, there is only one exercise: setting up an ancestral altar or shrine. There are endless ways of making proper offerings, but the first step is constructing an ancestral altar. This should be a separate altar from anything given to the Gods or the spirits of Nature. A simple shelf will do, dedicated entirely to the ancestors. There’s no right or wrong way to set up an altar, and we believe that in time your own ancestors will guide you into arranging it in a way that they like best. Our ancestral altars look quite different and reflect the differing ways in which we came into this work.

Galina: I’ve been told that my ancestral altars are distinctly Cuban. I suspect this is because my first bumbling forays into ancestor veneration were guided by a very patient santera (priest) in a Cuban Santerian house. I’m OK with that. My dead like it. It works for them. In fact, I didn’t actually realize it was very Cuban flavored until teaching a public workshop on polytheism. I began by laying out an ancestral altar. Since we all have ancestors, it’s usually a nice way of making some common ground right off. Three of the people present had grown up in Cuban Santerian households, and they all sat down by the altar with happy, contented little sighs and told me it reminded them of their childhoods. I was amused. To me, it was just what my dead liked.

I maintain three ancestor shrines in my home. The main shrine is a huge credenza that takes up one wall of my dining room. It has a shelf above it and above that a sixteenth-century map of Basel. Many of my maternal relatives both adopted and biological came from a little town outside of Basel. On the shelf I have pictures of my immediate relatives from all my lines, my grandmother’s prayer book and a couple of small knickknacks that belonged to her, two Lithuanian dolls in folk costumes for my paternal line, which, despite my last name, is almost 100 percent Lithuanian. On the bottom I have images of teachers and mentors, more blood ancestors, my ancestor pot, a small section given over to my lineage ancestors (as shaman, priest, warrior, and diviner) and a small section given over to honor Scathach. (She was a great warrior woman and teacher among the ancient Celts; I honor her as a heroic ancestor and am slowly working to restore her hero cult.) I also have images of various allies who help me maintain clean lines of communication with my dead, and many glasses filled with offerings. There are usually candles, incense, flowers, and offering plates of food, too, and of course, tobacco. I speak for the military dead, our warrior dead, so a small section of my altar is devoted to them as well.

On either side of this shrine I have framed images: to the right an image of Beli, a giant from whom I get my Jotun (giant-god) blood; beneath that, my paternal aunt’s wedding photo, and to the left an image of my dad when he graduated boot camp right before WWII. It’s framed in a shadow box and surrounded by his military medals. Beneath that is a lovely photo of my adopted mom. I also have several deity statues on my ancestral altar: Odin, as I share his bloodline; Surt, as progenitor of all (Fire being one of our eldest ancestors); Sekhmet the Egyptian lioness goddess, because she is my spiritual mother; Ganesh the elephant-headed Hindu god, because a relative has a connection to him; Chango the Santerian orisha of fire, because one of my ancestors (not related to me by blood) was devoted to him; and several of the Virgin Mary for various of my dead. Sometimes when honoring the dead, we have to respect their wishes and their own spiritual connections. One of my dead wanted a Virgin Mary statue, so she got a Virgin Mary statue.

I also have part of my adopted mom’s ancestral altar, including pictures of certain writers and poets whose work nourished her and helped her survive a difficult childhood. Offerings are always out. Opposite this credenza, nestled in a bookcase, is an iron pot, which is the home of one of my protective spirits, an ancestor who requested this particular placement and who keeps watch over my home. In my living room is a shelf with images of my adopted mom and certain sacred items that belonged to her (a deity image, her prayer beads, a small offering bowl), as well as candles, incense, flowers, and such. I make offerings at each every day, and the altars are a visible sign of my love and respect for my dead, and a conduit for mindfulness, memory, and active veneration. I do something with or for my ancestors every single day. Additionally, as an ancestor worker, I lead public rituals to the dead, lecture, teach, and do whatever I can to help clients who come to me get right with their ancestral house and obligations.

Raven: My ancestor altar is a little simpler—despite having Hela as my patron deity, I am not specifically an ancestor worker. As my eldest elder, Uncle Noaide takes the central place, surrounded by his náttúrhús and little reindeer herd. Around them are pieces of glassware owned by my grandparents. I inherited my grandmother’s collection of colored glass bottles, and they reside on a separate shelf against the window as part of my house warding, but the nicest pieces are on the ancestors’ altar. Also on the altar are some old photos, as well as names written down for people who have no photos. There are my grandfather’s broken pocket watches and his father’s old pocket knives. There is a Dala horse for my Scandinavian ancestors and some old dolls from Germany for the German half of the family. There is my grandmother’s old doll Celeste, a very early Madame Alexander model that was passed to my mother and then to me, and some items of my dead ex. (Even though we were age mates, I do consider my ex to have become an ancestor, and as we did make a daughter together, we are still family.)

I also have a vase of egunguns, an Umbanda tradition that I was moved to carry on. An egungun is a stick with strips of colored fabric tied to the end and cascading down, ideally cut from the clothing of the beloved dead or at the least what they would have worn. I have several, mostly from the friends who have died during my life and whose old clothes I grabbed to make the egungun. One is for the woman whose portrait grave rubbing was given to me as a gift and hangs on my wall; she died in 1386, but upon receiving that gift I was obligated to honor Elizabeth Bellingham as an ancestor as well. Doing the work we do often means that you can’t get away with casual things like hanging a dead person’s grave rubbing on the wall with no obligation.

As you can see, there’s a great deal of variation between our altars. That’s to be expected. There’s no right or wrong way to do this. Our dead are their own individuals, and we have unique relationships with them, and doing this is a partnership in many ways. By setting up an altar, you’re welcoming them into your life and home. You’re giving a visible sign of the hospitality that you are offering, and a visible sign that they are remembered, cared for, and honored.

Creating an ancestral altar can be as much an exercise in creativity as creating an altar to a spirit or deity. Whatever reminds you of your beloved dead can go on an ancestral altar; if you have small objects belonging to specific ancestors and wish to honor those people, all the better. The important thing is that the ancestral altar serves as a potent reminder that these people are still part of one’s family and one can still have an ongoing relationship with them.

The most common items to place on an ancestral altar are pictures of the dead. There is one caveat here: it is appropriate to place pictures of the deceased, even if they died as infants, on one’s ancestral altar, but under no circumstances should the picture of a living person be included. This is considered the equivalent of tempting or thumbing one’s nose at Death, neither of which is a wise course of action. Offerings may include cigarettes, raw tobacco, cornmeal, glasses of water, glasses of wine or other alcohol, foods that they might have liked, and various symbols of our ancestors from further back in both our spiritual and physical lineage. (Those who have Native American ancestry may find that their ancestors do not want alcohol, in which case it’s appropriate to give good clean water, juice, coconut milk, or any other nonalcoholic beverage. Similarly, Raven’s ancestors will not tolerate tobacco on their altar—most disapproved of smoking and a few had loved ones die of lung cancer. It’s interesting that both substances are sacred to the ancestors of specific people and were misused to terrible ends by those who did not recognize them as sacred.)

Any objects belonging to one’s deceased ancestors are completely appropriate, as are items from specific areas. It really is as simple as that, though it’s vital to remember that an altar is a living, changing thing, and there must ever be a consistent flow of energy. Keep the offerings ongoing and fresh. Do not neglect the altar, be it the ancestral altar or the primary devotional one. The altar is a link between the living and the honored dead. It is a pathway that must be walked regularly. In the Hávamál, Odin cautions us:

Hast thou a friend whom thou trustest well,

from whom thou cravest good?

Share thy mind with him, gifts exchange with him,

fare to find him oft.

POETIC EDDA, HÁVAMÁL, STANZA 44

Ancestor worker Laura Patsouris also advises strongly against fair-weather propitiation to ancestral altars: “As much as this holds true with the living, it holds equally true with the dead. I am always surprised when I run into Heathens or Pagans who neglect their ancestors. Our ancestral dead are no less than the lynchpin of our spiritual protection, luck, and well-being. They are truly invested in our safety and will gladly defend us, asking only for our love and reciprocal devotion in return. Consistency is the key here; they want to be an active part of our lives. Honor them regularly, not just when you need a favor. They gave us life; we owe them our gratitude and respect. Anything less is just bad manners.”

In addition to making an altar, there are many other ways of honoring one’s ancestors. We visit cemeteries (especially on anniversaries of a loved one’s death), tell stories of our dead, name children after beloved dead, and keep pictures of our loved ones. These are all ways of remembering the dead, of keeping their memories alive, of reminding ourselves that they’re still part of our families. This is what ancestor veneration is all about, and moving those things into the sphere of conscious action and then fleshing them out makes it all the more powerful a practice.

Because our ancestors are part of our spiritual life, it is appropriate to invite them to partake of the energy and offerings of each ritual. Therefore, offerings and calls may be made during services. I suggest that in ritual practice, after the space has been consecrated, pour or place the offering down and make a formal statement inviting the vaettir and ancestors to partake. It is also proper to set aside a portion of one’s meals, and even set an empty place at table for the ancestors. Walking through a graveyard and reading the names on the graves is a way of honoring the dead in general. We both will honor other people’s ancestors if there is no one else to do it. Remembering and speaking aloud the ancestor’s name, thus imbuing it with life and making it sacred, is a way of aligning one’s spirit with eternal life. The same holds true for telling their stories. Cemeteries are sacred places. The gateway into them, much like the torii gate marking the passage into Shinto temples, delineates passage between worlds, passage into sacred territory.

Craft: Cooking for the Dead

There is no more essential way of providing nourishment than cooking for someone. That holds true for the dead as much as for the living. Moreover, so much of culture, traditions, folk practices, and such are passed down through the tangibles of our lives, especially food. Once you’ve gotten your altar or shrine created and you’ve been working with it for a couple of weeks, offer your dead an ancestral feast. Cook foods that specific relatives liked, foods native to the places from which your ancestors came, or anything else that they tell you that they want. Lay the table nicely, and set out the food just as you would if you were having special guests over. Have good things to drink, and use nice dishes. If you and your grandma spent time in the kitchen making certain things, well, make those recipes. If you’ve never been in a kitchen before, that’s okay. Just keep it simple. Start with something that isn’t too frightening, or better yet, have a friend who is experienced at cooking come help for moral (and practical) support. There are lots of very simple recipe books out there. If cooking is intimidating to you, just keep it as simple as you can. Even cooking up some pasta and sauce, if that is the best you can do, is a good and worthy offering.

We usually advise setting the food out, calling your ancestors and welcoming them, and then going away. We also leave the food on the table for twenty-four hours and then dispose of it. (Both of us have land, so we can leave it outside under a tree or in the woods for critters to snack on afterward. If you are a city dweller, respectfully put it in the garbage just as you would after a regular dinner party with the living.) We have often encountered people who wonder at this waste of food. It’s not a waste, though. The ancestors are real. The Gods are real. You are sharing the food with real beings. That they are taking the ond, or energy, of the offering and not the physical food itself does not mean that the food is not being consumed. We generally advise against eating what has been offered to them, by the way. (Raven likes to sit in front of the altar for a while and make a spirit connection to whatever dead he is feeding, and then eat and drink for them, letting them taste the food through his body. This can be accomplished using the same instructions for connecting to any of the spirits in this book—by this time you ought to know how to do that, and these are actual human beings, so it’s easier.)

Some ancestor workers cook for their dead every single week. Galina offers part of most meals to her dead. The ancestral feast, though, is very special. If you can do it once a week, that is fantastic, but if not, try to do it every month, or every couple of months, and talk to your ancestors frequently. Consistency is the key here. They will more than meet you halfway if you are consistent and respectful. After all, no one likes to deal with the relative who calls only when he needs money! Don’t be that person.

In the Northern Tradition, the goal of one’s life is to die well. This is not the outcome of some morbid fascination with death, but rather the acknowledgment not only of the natural, eternal cycle of rebirth but that dying well encompasses every part of one’s life and involves living well, living each day in truth, serving the Holy Powers, honoring the ancestors, and crafting something for the future. In this work, we strive not only to better ourselves and to grow closer to the Gods, but to strengthen the threads of our communal wyrd, to craft something better for those who will come after us. Working with the ancestors in honesty and integrity of spirit is the first step on that path. One day we will be the ancestors upon which others call. It is incumbent on us to become the type of people whom our descendants will remember with honor and respect.