Month: November 2022

For exponential increases in your power? For a new or newly deepened mission in the world?

As in the Voluspa:
“21. She remembers the first war in the world
when Gullveigr [Gold Power-Drink]
was hoist on the spears
and in the High One’s hall they burned her;
Three times they burned the Three Times Born
often, not seldom, yet she still lives!

22. She was called Heiðr [Heath/Bright Open Space]
when she came to the settlements,
the well-divining vǫlva;
She could cast spells
She did seiðr wherever she could
She did seiðr with a playful intent
She was always loved by wicked/ill women”
– translated by Maria Kvilhaug

I am the “woman who makes a bad wife” (an alternate translation of “ill women” in the previous stanza), as are my people. We are not content with what society has handed us, with what gender and other archetypal roles in society say we should want or be satisfied with, we long for something more. Something wilder.
Are you one of us?

You feel the Something More calling you deep in your heart.
No matter how much cultural conditioning or masking overlays it, you can feel the desperate longing in your heart for your home in the Something More.

Today we live in a society that is both barren of the Something More, and beginning to experience a reluctant but ever-expanding renaissance of it simultaneously.

With so many hungry and seeking, where do you turn? Who will be the mistresses for the apprentices of the next wave? The ones who will lead the masses?

Are you ready to die?
If you want to be initiated into the mysteries of the Something More, yes, you are.

Plenty of people have rejiggered mystery schools to make them easier, more symbolically metaphoric, gentler. I’m not saying that’s a wrong path, it’s just not mine. Is it yours?
I’ve been initiated more than once at this point, and even though I’m frequently convinced I’m actually dying during the process, or have truly died at its end, I always come back.

“Often [they killed her], not seldom, and yet still she lives!”

I’ve included these stanzas from the Voluspa of the Poetic Edda because they are a succinct summary of what mysteries I embody. What mysteries I will lead you through.

Mostly when we think of a mystery school we think of the Greco-Roman craze for mystery schools. These are the Mysteries of Demeter, the Roman Mysteries of Isis, Roman Mithraism, and, yes, even Christianity in its early forms.

All of them involve a ritual dying with the deity in question (or one she loves) and a resurrection through the deity. This is a good start, but there is more. More that is illustrated in the stanzas about Gullveig and Heidhr.

The mysteries I embody will have you completing something like the archetypal hero’s journey.
Yes, the death and rebirth are there. The idea and deep knowing that you cannot truly be killed is there. The idea that each death, each pass through the fire on spears, exponentially increases your power, but one very important feature is this: After initiation you receive a new name and a new or deepened mission in the world.
After initiation you are a new person with a new perspective, new insight, and a new position and path in your life and in the community.

This is the path of the animist spirit worker, commonly called a shaman in English.
We see these patterns of initiatory death, power gathering, and rebirth in many, many animist traditions. Whatever your path, chances are good that there is a representation of this pattern in your stories.

I will lead you down this path while teaching you how to bond to your own spirit lineage, no matter how lost or broken the connection between yourself and your modern people with your ancient lineage.

Are you ready? Nevermind, you may never feel ready.
Are you feeling the desire for the Something More?
Are you feeling the terror of That Which Lies Beyond?

Come, join me on this journey or send me an email to start the conversation.

Are you in the underworld right now? Are you in the dark?
Maybe you feel like your life just *is* darkness, all the time.

What if I told you that the underworld is where women and feminine folks (really everyone, but more especially us) go to retrieve our power?
We’re so familiar with the masculine journey, the hero’s journey. Some people, like Joseph Campbell, have tried to make it apply to all of us, but it doesn’t quite.

The heroine’s journey is different. It, like all of these journeys, comes in as many variations as there are people who walk the path, but there are certain mythic themes that we all pass through.

Have you considered yourself as a mythic hero?
Well, if you’re reading this, you are. Truly.

There are many underworld journeys you will take in your life. Some are just brief visits, some are long journeys, and some are homecomings.
Yes, some of us live in the underworld. Not everyone, but those of us who do are not being tortured, or at least we don’t have to be.
We are queens of hel. Like Hela, like Gerda, like Persephone. We don’t necessarily spend all our time in the underworld, but we do spend a lot of time there.

It can be easy though. This is where we belong, after all.

Writing this I’m recalled of a dream I had several months ago when I was going through a massive trial of physical pain.

In my dream I was curled up in a child’s pose type position, naked, weeping, and lying on the stony ground in the deep dark of the underworld.

At first I thought I was stuck in hel (read that with an eternity of resentment behind it).
Then I realized I was living in hel. On purpose. And that I didn’t need to be stuck in the middle of this barren plain, naked, and in pain. I could actually organize my followers to build me a palace. I don’t really want to leave, and I don’t want to suffer. And both are choices, truly.

A Queen of Hel is in charge of the narrative in Hel. It’s your realm, the citizens are your people.

Maybe you’re stuck in Hel because you need to meet the Goddess who reflects your current Soul archetype right now. She can be terrifying, it can be hard to walk through her well-guarded flaming walls and into her startlingly splendid light.

She appears to be a monstrous giant. She will probably eat you.

And yet, the myths tell us that if you can approach her with the knowledge and the ability and the guts to claim who you truly are, your true name that you may yet have forgotten, she will welcome you with open arms.

What is that name? The name below the name?
Can you claim it strongly enough that She believes you? That you believe you?

That’s how you get there. Wherever your next level is, it’s just beyond your claiming of your true nature, your true name.

I have a couple of spots open to work with me on this journey to claim your name and your throne. Get in touch over email or by visiting the application page.

Please note that the pricing listed on the application page is for a one year journey, I also have availability for 6 month commitments at this time.

Let’s talk about the real thing that’s happening right now…
For me, for you, for so many folks that I’ve been in contact with lately.
Maybe it’s the stars, the moon, or the season… who knows, but I know that it’s definitely happening.

Death portals – what happens when something dies? Something huge, something that was a part of your identity?

I’m experiencing a massive death.
It’s terrifying.

I know many of you are as well.

I wonder if it will consume my whole life.
Will my primary relationship die?
Will I die?

It’s not clear yet, everything is still swirling. So much so that since Monday night I feel dizzy all the time.

My business-child is dying. I’m killing her.
Well, let’s be clear: She’s been dying for several months and expressing it in several ways. I’ve been pouring my energy into her keep her going for these 11 months, but now I’m not.
Now I’m mercy killing her. Releasing her to return to the All That Is.

She’s been my whole life for so long. In fact, part of this is that I’m also walking away from my identity as a veterinarian.
That will always be a part of me, but I’m stepping away from that being my primary expression of who I am in public life.

I don’t know what comes next.

This is part of our terror of death. What happens next? We don’t know.
Just like if you remembered being in the womb and understood that birth and an absolutely complete shift of your experience was about to come in ways that you could not understand yet.

I’m surrounded by death all the time. That’s what it is to be a DeathWife. I’m married to Death. I live with Death.

It’s a bit different than dying myself. Even when I walk close family members through death, as I did recently when my dear familiar Pippi Fluffstocking died and I had the opportunity to walk her through her dying and walk my partner (and myself) through the process as well.

This isn’t just someone near me dying, this is my own death. It’s been a long time since I’ve passed through a self-death portal… and this might be the biggest one yet.

I referred to these paths and practices in my previous post about suicide. In the months leading up to this death I’ve had intense suicidal ideation.
I want to live though… and I will.

But in order to live, in order to really live, I have to kill the things that are hanging out in and around me that are not me. They have to leave, and if they can’t or won’t, they must be killed.

I can’t tell you what the result is yet. I’m not there. We’re still in the death moments.
I’m still holding her like my baby and releasing body wracking sobs. She’s still very warm in my arms.

Maybe you are as well. Things are dying or have just died. Everything is still dark in this void space so close to Death. All the light and joy seems to be sucked out of your life as you walk in this liminal space. This space between spaces.

What I know as a DeathWalker, deep in my bones, is that there is another thing coming.
It’s very hard for me to face this, and this is what I do in my life. It would be impossible without the support I have around me.

If you find yourself in this space of who you are, who you have been, dying, or you know that such a death is on the horizon, I am available to support just a very small number of people who are passing through or want to walk the path of death and rebirth but are terrified to trigger it on your own.

Visit the application page to get started on your journey, or drop me a note if you have questions.