Going native SIEDR

The way of Seidr When I first came to the shamanic path, it was not something I really thought about for too long, there were no personal decisions that I would consciously choose to be a seidrman (English/Northern European shaman), in fact I did not even know the term existed, never mind that I had become one till at least 15 years later. Looking back, it seems as though it was all decided for me or, moreover, that once I had been called to the path, each thing that happened to me led me to further knowledge and understanding of my own tradition. It was as though the calling from my ancestors became a kind of catalyst to change within my life, setting off a number of events within my Wyrd that would lead me to the place I am today nearly 30 years later.

Going native

The English/Northern European shamanic path called Siedr is alive and well in the British Isles. Runic John gives us an introduction into this mysterious and powerful tradition

 

Cold the wind that blows over the Northern moors, but colder still the wind that blows from the depths of Nifelheim. Of ice and snow and mist is born, dancing upon bare flesh like burning razors, searing cuts of frost deep to the bone.

Cold the wind that blows from the Northern moors, but colder still that winter’s day when wyrd’s web twisted round soul shards whole and orlog unknowingly laid down to rest before eyes unaware.

 

Learning to remember

Seidr is an ancient path, a windswept ancient moor path, a deep ‘within the marrow of the bones’ path. It is the path that sings in the voices of the ancient ones and the path that untangles the web, a path that brings home our power, allowing each and every one of us to become the spider; to learn to unravel and to weave the web of life for ourselves.

To practice seidr is to learn to seethe, to feel the heat that rises in flesh and in bone, to free the self, the real self, from this place of the touching and the feeling, to leave the solid place and to enter the no space, the place not seen, the world not entered. To cross the threshold that to all but seidrfolk lies barred by fairy stone or elven gateway. To practice seidr is to enter the forest often travelled but seldom seen. To touch the bark, rough tree skin, to smell the earth, the mother’s flesh, to call the other selves from deep within the depth and tangle of branch and leaf; boar, bear, wolf, horse, stag, raven. To plant new found feet on deep soft earth, to breathe in her musky perfume, to walk this well-trod path, feel the sun as it breaks through the canopy, bringing radiant kisses of welcome warmth to stone cold skin. To ride the great reindeer, to see the trees as they age with each step and to stand at the edge of the ancient grove, to gasp at the girth of the great tree, the old tree, the world tree.

To practice seidr is to leap and bound on reindeer drums back over fairytale forgotten mushrooms, on a ground speckled red and white, where hooves' near miss take you nearer to the gateway between the worlds. Standing and staring into the beyond, the unseen, the lost place, the found place, into the darkness where the heartwood of the great tree once stood, to take a footstep beyond this world of hard and hold, of feel and touch, of stay and fall. To move into the darkness inside and to enter the core, the heart blood centre of this most ancient of trees, to be within and to stand on the edge, the edge of the all, the edge of the world, the edge of the worlds. From here we shall travel deep into the hidden night, from here we shall ride the song of the reindeer drum high into branch and leaf or low into root and earth. This is the way of seidr.

 

Finding my way home

Just imagine that someone asked you to name a ‘shamanic’ path, what would be the first thing that comes into your head? The Native American path? Siberian? Inuit? Korean? Maybe even Celtic? Whatever your answer, I can bet with a pretty strong certainty that it would not be ‘the English shamanic path’. This is understandable: exotic cultures and people are addictively interesting. As individuals we flock to them: they always seem to somehow possess something that we have lost; to be brighter; more interesting; to be rooted deep in the hidden past, mysterious and alluring. In the cold and wild North of England where I was born and brought up, and still live, for many people the dates for the holidays seem to be the most important thing in their lives: escape, get away to some foreign shore, relax, release, recharge your batteries, then return ready to face the everyday grind of life. For the longest time we have shared the traditions of other people from unseen countries and cultures across the Earth; some gifted to us in a heartfelt act of sharing, others taken without a care or thought of where and when, of what or whom they have come from. When I was much younger I too spent a long time studying the many fascinating cultures and inspiring traditions from the world over. Through them I made many lifelong friends and from them I learnt many lessons; the greatest of all being the crystal clear awareness that I would never and could never, be anything other than that which I already am.

 

Wyrd written

Before we go any further, let me introduce myself, my name is John; these days I am known by most people as Runic John. I live in the Rossendale valley, deep in the hills of the North of England. When I was around 12 years old I had a number of wyrd experiences in which the spirits of my ancestors called me to the path of my forefathers; they told me, in their own words: “In you is the knowledge of your forefathers, which you came to make live twice”. At that early age I didn’t fully realise what “making the ways of my forefathers live twice” entailed and in my childhood innocence had no idea how much of an impact that calling and those words would have on my life. For in these words my Orlog (the first layer that determines one’s life path and purpose) was written and the forces of Wyrd (fate) have guided me to that purpose ever since.

Over the years I have found myself on a spiritual, magikal and shamanic path that traces its roots far back in time to the earliest primitive settlers in Northern Europe, right through to the settlement of England by the Angles, Saxons and Jutes and the later invasions of the Norse and other Scandinavian peoples. Collectively these peoples are known today as the ‘Germanic peoples’ and include the people of Germany, Iceland, Denmark, Scandinavia and, of course, England. Personally I know them both as the ancestors who called to me as a child and collectively as the Northern Tribal Peoples. For, before the coming of Christianity, in common with indigenous tribal cultures the world over, the Northern tribes had an unbroken spiritual, magikal and shamanic tradition that could trace its roots back to the earliest settlers of Europe. Maybe even back to the earliest human beings, who in our tradition were carved from two trees washed upon the primal shores of the Midgard (the physical realm - the Earth!) and are called Askr and Embla; Ash and Elm. Today this spiritual path is known as the ‘Northern Tradition’ or more specifically in England as ‘Heathenry’.

Heathenry is an old way, it is the way of the folk that lived upon the heath, upon the moors, it is the indigenous Pagan path of Northern Europe, though today we choose to use our own indigenous word ‘Heathen’ to describe who and what we are as opposed to ‘Pagan’ which derives from Latin. Heathenry is an ancient way, it is the way of the folk who lived upon this land and it is the way of the wights (spirits) and beings who dwell upon and within the land. It is a path of many parts and each and every person approaches it in their own individual way, there are no god-given laws and rules, there are no sacred books to tell you to do things this way or that and there are no priests to help you repent your sins; in fact there is no sin either! Heathenry is a path of doing and being, it is a personal path of relating to the gods and goddesses and the spirits of the North in your own way, in your own fashion.

From the magikal and shamanic angle, there are two main practices in Heathenry. The first of these is Galdr, (pronounced Galdor) through which we work in many different ways with the hidden forces that underlie all of reality that are embodied in the runes, magikal symbols handed down to us through the mists of time by our ancestors. Through rune song and chant and stance and incantation, through carving and sending runes we learn to change and turn the very structure of reality itself, melding it to our intent, bending it to our will. Galdr is a powerful magik indeed, a magik that whilst able to stand its own ground is made whole through the practice of Seidr (pronounced Seth), the shamanic path of Heathenry.

 

The way of Seidr

When I first came to the shamanic path, it was not something I really thought about for too long, there were no personal decisions that I would consciously choose to be a seidrman (English/Northern European shaman), in fact I did not even know the term existed, never mind that I had become one till at least 15 years later. Looking back, it seems as though it was all decided for me or, moreover, that once I had been called to the path, each thing that happened to me led me to further knowledge and understanding of my own tradition. It was as though the calling from my ancestors became a kind of catalyst to change within my life, setting off a number of events within my Wyrd that would lead me to the place I am today nearly 30 years later.

In those far gone days there was no internet with which to research and share knowledge and experiences, there were very few books around on the subject and in the North of England in the late seventies there were definitely no other people who did such “weird stuff” (and if they did they certainly would not shout about it in public!). Even when I found myself heading off at tangents and working with or studying other traditions I would always find that they would come full circle and lead me back to my own path once more.

Whilst there are extensive written accounts that either mention Seidr by name or that pertain to Seidr in some form, such as folklore and folk practices, fairy tales, and mythology etc, much of the knowledge of how to actually practice Seidr has been lost in the vestiges of time, thus the path of the solitary seidrman has not been an altogether easy one. By necessity, it has been a task of returning to source, learning both from the outer world of men and the remaining stories and tales that mention seidr, then expanding this outer knowledge by travelling to the otherworld and learning from the gods, the wights and the ancestors themselves. For many years, for want of another term, I would use the term ‘Northern shamanism’ to describe what I was doing. It was only whilst in the spirit world that Woden (god of wisdom, Runes etc.) told me that I was practicing Seidr and I was a seidrman that I myself heard of the term. Today things are very different and I feel personally that the wheel has turned once more and the old ways of the North are without doubt beginning to return or, to put it more accurately, that people are starting to “remember”.

If you are familiar with shamanism then you will know that the term originally derives from the word ‘Saman’ which itself is a Tungusk word (the Tungusk are a Siberian tribe), meaning "to boil or to seethe". Today it has been coined by anthropologists and is used as an umbrella term to describe an individual who works in an altered state of consciousness and who has the ability to transcend the physical realm and access the hidden realms of spirit, whether this involves actually travelling to the spirit world itself or manipulating aspects of the spirit world whilst in an altered state.

Seidr itself is also an ancient word whose ‘definite’ meaning is lost in the mists of time. At some point or other it might have meant ‘magic’ or ‘sorcery’ and has certainly been translated from the old language into the new many times as ‘witchcraft’, a name often gifted to those who follow the path of the shaman by those who point fingers and make decrees that the old gods are now the new devils. At some point it might have also meant "to seethe or to boil" just as its Tungusk cousin does. As to the nature of this seething and boiling we can only guess. Maybe the seething of power deep within the self as we become inspired. Maybe the boiling of some plant of power, some sacred Northern herb or mix of herbs to free the soul from flesh enabling it to ride through the great tree. Maybe the shaking of the body that often comes when the soul takes flight between the worlds. Or maybe a mix of all, and none, at different times and in different places.

When we practice seidr we learn to leave this known world of the physical and to travel to the inner realm of spirit. We learn to tune ourselves into the hidden vibration of the otherworld, to see, to feel, to experience the realms that whilst always present are normally hidden from view. At first we might find our eyes and limbs take time to become accustomed to this new world, our vision may be blurred and we may stumble and fall, but through time we learn to see and to walk again, as we once did as newborns. Over time we become accustomed to this new world, this new realm of countless possibilities. Now we see with eyes of the eagle and bound with the legs of the deer, we sense the scents of the forest as does the dog and like the shining one we learn to hear the wool grow upon the sheep's back.

 

The World Tree

Like any shamanic tradition the world over, seidr has its own particular way of understanding the universe and everything within it; a way that specifically resonates and is played out for real every day in the landscape, the weather, the animals and the people of the North.

At the centre of all things is the great World tree Yggdrasil, an ancient Yew, whose girth is wider than the eye can see and whose branches reach into the realms of the gods themselves. Standing deep within the ancient Yew grove, the World tree is the gateway to all other worlds, through which each and every seidrman or woman must pass. Within the roots and branches of this most ancient of trees rest the whole of creation, of which there are nine worlds in all.

At the centre of the great tree is the world we know as our own, the physical realm of Midgard, the middle enclosure. It is from here that our journey always begins and it is back here that we shall return until that fateful day that awaits us all eventually falls and we cross the threshold for one last time; when we too become ancestors. Midgard is our everyday world, the place where all the forces and echoes within the spirit realm are made manifest and given expression through physical form.

Below Midgard is the realm of the dwarves, Swartalfheim, home of the dwarves: a dark realm deep within the earth. Small in stature but powerful in both might and creative prowess, the dwarves are great smiths and workers of metal, crystal and all the precious ores and jewels found within the earth. It is from them that the gods themselves have gained their greatest treasures and it is to their realm that we travel to view our magikal self and to learn their subterranean magikal arts.

Below the home of the dwarves is Helheim, the home of Hella, the realm of the ancestors and home to the goddess of the ancestors, Hella. The most maligned of all worlds, Hellheim is the place that, undeservingly, became the basis of the Christian Hell. But far from being a realm of torture and pain, Helheim is a place of serenity and great beauty. It is the place where most of those who have passed from this mortal coil dwell in joy and happiness, rejoining their families and in many ways living as they once did upon this earth but with maybe a more organic feel! Helheim is a vast and endless realm and whilst most folk only enter and live in its most outer levels, seidrfolk enter deeper than most other human beings could imagine or need to travel. It is to Helheim we journey to seek council from the ancestors and it is to Helheim we travel when we are healing the soul, for it is here where lost souls are most often found to roam.

Moving back up the tree we come to Lightalfheim, the home of the lightelves, the realm that stands above Midgard upon the World tree. The lightelves are beings of light, the cousins of the dwarves who dwell below ground, theirs is a realm that truly contrasts that of the dwarves, a realm of light, of beauty, of great plains, valleys and woodlands and sometimes even places that are solely made of light itself. The lightelves are teachers and healers and many of them were once great earthly spiritual teachers, who on passing to the other side have chosen to stay and guide their kinfolk. You are probably familiar with them without even knowing and today they are often known as angels, ascended beings or light beings.

Above Lightalfheim, at the top most branches of the World tree, is the realm of Asgard, the enclosure of Aesir. Here the Aesir and Vanir, the two great tribes that make up the gods and goddesses of the Northern folk dwell, each having his or her own land and hall (or halls in some cases) to dwell in. Asgard is a holy place, a place of great power and like Helheim at the roots of the tree it is an endless realm. It is from here that the gods themselves journey through the great tree, often even visiting Midgard to guide and teach their folk. And it is here that seidrfolk journey for the most powerful guidance and deepest of transformations.

Around Midgard are four other worlds, whose forces and powers constantly play upon the physical realm and whose influence directly affects all living things upon the Earth. In the North is the ice and frost covered realm of Nifelheim, the home of mist and ice; in the south is Muspelheim, the home of the Muspelli, a world of raging fire and flame; in the west is the green and forested world of Vanaheim, the original home of the Vanir, gods and goddesses of the forest, the earth and the sea; and in the east is Jotunheim, home of the giants.

Underlying our physical ream of Midgard is a place we know as ‘Inner Midgard’ which is the realm that is nearest to the physical plane, a kind of inner reflection of the underlying spiritual reality that is given physical form on our Earth. Inner Midgard is the threshold place between the worlds, it is of this and of the otherworld and in reality it is from here that all our journeys truly begin.

 

A way of doing

Like all shamanic traditions the world over, seidr is a path of power, of knowledge and of healing and whether you begin your journey for yourself or with the specific intent of serving others, you will without question find that you will eventually be called on to help others in need. When I was younger I spent much of my time travelling to festivals across the country, searching out my community and once found, offering my healing and divination skills to help those in need. As I have grown older, I have found that I am spending less time actually practicing one-to-one healing myself and more of my time teaching seidr and galdr, introducing others to this ancient path of ours, stirring their memories, helping them to remember and empowering them to be seidrfolk in their own right. As a path of healing, the journey that seidr brings us as practitioners is personally both life-shattering and life-building; shattering your illusions as to who you might be, who you think you are and showing you who you truly are, rebuilding the soul and in the process making you whole. In many ways today you could say I am healing through teaching others to heal!

The path of seidr is not always the easiest path, it is not a ‘sit down and have it done for you’ path, neither is it a ‘served on a plate’ path. Seidr is a path that requires power and focus, dedication and intent. It is a path of doing, a path that cannot simply be read about; it is a path that has to be experienced for us to know, for us to understand. To me, a Heathen to the marrow in my bones, seidr, along with galdr is more a way of life, a way of being, of doing. For, as seidrfolk, we do not say that we "believe", we have been there ourselves and we know!

 

More information

For a more in-depth and very practical look at all aspects of seidr you might want to purchase Runic John's The Book of Seidr (Capall Bann, £14.95). Turn to page 53 to order this book from Kindred Spirit Mail Order.

Runic John runs regular workshops on both seidr and galdr and all aspects of the indigenous English/Northern European healing and magikal path. For more information of up and coming workshops, to ask any questions, or to organise personal and/or group tuition and workshops please feel free to contact him at runicjohn@hotmail.com

by Runic John
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