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www.shamansociety.org 13 yourself into contact with the wind the night with the animals and spirits out there and let their songs blend with yours to guide you and heal you. The Seidr Song In seidr we use singing instead of drumming to come into contact with the otherworld. Thorbjrg states that with- out singing the spirits turn away from her. And without spirits she cannot see to do the seidr. Sweet was the chanting or no one present had ever heard a fairer song are some of the descriptions of the old seidr songs. At other times they are referred to as strong or harsh. Both then and now the seidr song is known to often become ecstatic. No old seir songs have been handed down to us so I have had to turn to the related traditions of magic and ritual song of the Nordic countries especially the Norse galdr the Finnish runolaulo the Sami joik and to learn the old for- gotten skills of magic singing. Traditional magic chanting is characterised by being repetitious and going on for a long time thereby facilitating trance or a change of consciousness similar to the way drum- ming works. This is the old literal mean- ing of the word enchantment. Today this is experienced by both the seidr worker and by the singers in the circle who maybe for the first time in their lives know the basic human experience of let- ting go completely into singing. In different types of seidr you are either sung over by other people or you can sing yourself on your journey. In the example from Laxdoela Saga mentioned earlier Kotkels family as a close-knit unit sang their own seidr. Just as im- portant though chanting is often used by the seidr-worker to communicate with the participants and to manifest the outcome of the seidr work. When Thorbjrg for example chants This illness shall end sooner than any of you expect she is doing more than report- ing a vision she is singing it into being Sung messages unlike spoken words have a way of going directly to the heart of the listener without being first filtered by the brain. It is a way of moving power strengthening the magic impact and deeply touching the listener. In both Norse and Celtic spiritual tradition this is a strong trait known as inspired in the literal sense poetry and is often ecstatic. It is also used worldwide in shamanic rituals of many traditions including Siberian and South American. It easily enhances and empowers our own modern healing and other shamanic work. The Seidr Seat In the past I often translated Seihiall to high seat when speaking English as do many written translations of the Norse sources. But this inaccurate trans- lation is mixing two terms which histori- cally and energetically are very different. For example in the case of Thorbjrg she is led to the hsti on the night she arrives. The next day doing the seidr she climbs onto the seihiall. The hsti high seat is a seat of social honor in the hall often kept in the family for generations. It is of this world a VIP seatfull of ego. The seidr seat seihiall is a magic seat or platform built for the occasion and it has no room for ego. The seidr practitionerlike all shamansis while on the job and the seat the servant of the people and at the same time a servant of the spirits a mediator sitting between the worlds. It can be very seductive to sit on the seidr seat if the distinction between the two seats is not made clear and well under- stood. The danger is in forgetting that the authority of the words coming out of your mouth does not belong to you but to the spirits. The Staff The staff volr which has given name to the volva is also literally speaking the centre of seir. When you sit on the magic seat in a sea of human and spirit voices or sit in the visions of the twilit forest it is the staff in your hands which holds the direction of your journey and keeps you centered. At the same time the staff is your grounding like the Tree of Life connecting earth and sky. In the old literature another word used for staff is gandr. But gandr can also mean spirit ally or magic or all three at once as in a shamanic experience with the soul of the staff when it might turn into a horse or move like a snake. In seidr work it is the inner spirit side that makes a powerful staff not the look of its outer surface. Working with Power and Ergi Sometimes the character of a seidr is mostly gentle and clear. But now and then in a strong ecstatic seidr you may encounter a raw power of nature coming from the earth or whirling in the song running through the staff or yourself. And sometimes this power has a clearly erotic or sexual character. This can be a profound spiritual experience in itself. But the point is that this is the power that you are given from the spirit world for the stated purpose of your seidr be it healing transformation or deeper insight into the web of life. And the way to deal with it is through surrender without forgetting your mission. For me this is the beauti- ful mystery core of seidr. This quality of seidr is hinted at and named ergi in the mythic poems and the sagas. Ergi is the most esoteric and enig- matic aspect of seidr. In the academic research it is also the most misunder- stood aspect of seidr. In the old texts it is said that men could not perform seir without shame due to the ergi inherent in seir. Ergi was in the age of the sagas the Viking age interpreted as a linking together of unmanliness magic skilful- ness and sexual perversion. Thus the idea of the unmanly seidr man is heav- ily dependent on the Viking ages narrow definition of acceptable masculinity and sexuality. Still the unmanly seidr myth has stuck in almost all later academic and popular speculations.