How Way Leads on to Way

Every once in a while I become mesmerized by the interconnectedness of things, and feel compelled to talk about it: this is one of those moments.

Last Friday I attended a psychometry meeting with a group of (mostly) women. It was the first time in many months that I was able to go, and it was lovely to reconnect with familiar faces. Each meeting begins with a meditation - different each time - meant to calm the mind and open us to the energies of the people and environment around us.

This time our meditation facilitator guided us through the opening of each chakra, and then to the expansion of those energies outward into the earth, the town, the world, and cosmos. Two things were very evident to me during this experience:

• As I expanded outward into the depths of space, I felt Odin's presence, and I was very happy. Being there brought me back to a dream I'd had nearly a year ago (May 2016) about being in outer space, not seeing - but clearly feeling - Odin, and seeing concentric circles surrounding the planet. I won't go into detail here, but if you're curious, feel free to click here to read my post about it.

• I felt a deep calling to connect more deeply to the Earth, and to mother energy. 

Shortly thereafter we began to "read" our objects (click here to read about how psychometry works), and the elderly woman who had my silver bracelet told me (among other things) that she felt I was on earth to teach peace. This is a theme that has been relatively consistent throughout my life. In fact, my tutelary Orisha is Obatalá, who is known for wisdom, patience, and peace. As I was listening to her read the notes she had written, I wondered about that, and about how over the past few years I feel like I've been developing my warrior qualities - how do the two connect when they seem so contrary? 

Yesterday I was feeling a bit glum and in need of "something" unidentifiable. In the evening my husband, son, and I drove downtown to my favorite metaphysical shop. I wandered. I had no clear purpose. I reviewed cards, but none called to me. I wandered through the crystal room, looked, and browsed, and then I saw a small basket filled with green stones - Green Aragonite. I am not normally attracted to green stones (which is a little funny, since green is one of my favorite colors!), but this felt good to me. I sorted through the basket and found a beautiful piece, striated with rusty lines reminiscent of lightning bolts. I was unsure of its characteristics, but it felt calming and nurturing, and right, so I kept it in my hand. 

Then I went to the book room, and let my eyes run over the titles. I thought I caught a glimpse of the word "trees" so I went back over the same shelf more slowly, and found a new book there called, "Be More Tree," by Alice Peck. Hmmm...... I pulled it out and started to flip through it, and I fell in love. The book reviews the qualities of a large array of trees from around the world - their characteristics, their cultural associations and mythologies. There are excerpts from well-known authors that capture the essence or teaching of a particular tree. There are suggestions for ways to "be more tree." 

Over the past month or two I quite suddenly started being utterly moved by the beauty of trees that I'd walked by hundreds of times before. I have always loved trees, and one of my favorite things about the nightly strolls that my husband and I take is the opportunity to simply see and appreciate them (and the birds, and flowers). And yet it was like I was observing them with a whole new set of eyes. I would stop mid-stride, mouth hanging open, ogling the elegance of an oak tree. Once I was so transfixed by the movement of the branches overhead dancing in the evening breeze, the last tendrils of sunlight weaving through their leaves, that my husband had to remind me that a car was coming, and that I should probably move! 

I pondered the Norse creation story, which tells that the first humans were created out of trees. When we went to a local Easter egg hunt, I saw groups of people waiting for the event to start, and next to them there were stands of cypress and oak trees. All I could think of was Ask (Ash) and Embla (Elm), and how closely we are related, somehow.

Indeed, in Germanic cosmology, the multiverse is contained within Yggdrasill, the World Tree. 

This tree book felt just as right as the stone I was carrying, so I purchased both and left the shop. Later I researched Green Aragonite, and found that it connects to Earth goddess energy, and helps calm the nerves. Hm! That was so timely in light of my meditation experience a couple of days before, and an unsurprising-but-affirming reminder that intuition is the best tool for selecting stones. 

Before bed I flipped the book open and it landed "randomly" on Olive - my namesake! Olive is associated with peace, which got me thinking about the psychometry reading, and about my earlier musing on the dichotomy between peace and warrior energy. 

And I realized that they are entirely complementary. We tend to think of them as opposites, but without the courage of the warrior spirit, can there ever be true peace? When I was young (and even into my young adulthood) conflict was deeply challenging for me. I avoided it at all cost, I worked hard to promote harmony and mutual understanding. I thought of myself as a "peace-loving" person, and while that was true, it was also true that I often avoided conflict out of fear. It is one thing to have the courage to be confrontational if necessary, but to prefer the route of thoughtfulness, diplomacy, and peace. It is quite another thing when the preference for peace stems from a place of fear and self-doubt. Obatalá is the Orisha of peace and wisdom, but he was also a great warrior who went to battle countless times. I don't believe he would have been able to be such a valuable force for cool-headed thinking and a calm demeanor without first having learned what it means to fight. 

In that sense, I see how the development of my warrior energy has been a sort of healing process (especially under the tutelage of Odin, though Obatalá's offerings are present here as well), and ultimately serves to make my preference for peace all the more meaningful. 

Weaving Spirituality: Santería and the Northern Tradition

Ellen, from Greylady's Hearth, asked me some time ago to write about the ways in which I incorporate both Santería and the Northern Tradition into my spiritual/religious practice. It is at once a rather simple and complex topic; I don't necessarily combine them, but I do honor Norse/Germanic history and mythology as a part of ancestor veneration. And as I've pondered it over the past couple of weeks some salient areas of relationship between the two have risen up into my thoughts:

1) Both Santería and the Northern Tradition feature a variety of gods and goddesses/Orichas whom we learn about through our personal relationships with them, as well as through sacred stories or myths. In these stories they interact amongst themselves as well as with others, oftentimes showing quite human characteristics that serve to teach us about the world (and in fact some were human at one point or another). In Norse history these are the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, as well as the Sagas to some extent. In Santería these are the patakís. A principal divergence here is that while the "pantheon" in Santería includes the presence of a primary creator God, Olodumare, no such equivalent exists in the Northern Tradition. (Santería is a monotheistic faith, whereas the Northern Tradition is considered polytheistic. The Orichas are somewhat similar to saints, which lent themselves to being syncretized with Catholicism during slave times in the New World).

2) Both Santería and the Northern Tradition feature a divination style unique to the history of each. In Santería divination is most typically done via the caracoles (Merindilogún, cowrie shells - usually those of Elegua) by Santeros, or using the epuele or Opon Ifá (Table of Ifá) by Babalawos, priests of Orula (I'm sidestepping obi divination since it is essentially a yes/no system that, while extremely helpful and useful, lacks the complexity of the previous two). The heart of both the caracoles and Ifá lies in the Odu (which is too complex a subject to detail here). In the Northern Tradition the wisdom of the runes was granted to Odin after he sacrificed himself (to himself, as it were) for 9 days hanging upside down from the branches of Yggdrasil.

3) Both Santería and the Northern Tradition place heavy emphasis on ancestor veneration. In Santería, our family members who have passed on, previous generations we may never have had a chance to know, even spiritual ancestors (such as those of our god family) form our egun, those without whom we may not exist, those whose own life experiences may have sent vibrations down through our family's energetic ties that could well be influencing us today in ways we may not even be aware of. Our egun, our ancestors, are honored, recognized, petitioned for support and guidance. We offer them water, coffee, flowers, plates of food. We talk with them. We welcome them, invite them to be present for us in any way that they are able.

I honor my egun at my bóveda - my altar. Learning about the Northern Traditions (a term I most commonly use to refer to the Norse/Viking/Germanic pre-Christian spiritual beliefs and tales) is one way that I honor aspects of my biological lineage. While my physical ancestors are diverse (British Isles, southern Italy, Northern Africa, the Middle East, Northern Europe and Scandinavia, even South America) I have always been drawn to Viking history. Thus, it has become an aspect of personal study, it contributes to an extent to my spiritual ideology, and serves as an element of ancestor veneration, even within the context of Santeria.

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I fondly recall listening to my aunt proudly discuss our North Frisian and Danish "Viking" history when I was a young adolescent. She and my uncle named their boat "Norddorf" after the town of my great-grandfather's birth on the island of Amrum in the North Sea. Amrum is one of the North Frisian islands located off the coast of Germany, near Denmark. He, along with his Danish wife, my great-grandmother Emilie, form the first generation of U.S. immigrants on my father's side.

As I started to learn more about ancient Norse mythology I was drawn even more deeply into the fold. I was born on a Wednesday, Odin's Day, and I was born near Yule, a time associated with the Wild Hunt. I found Odin fascinating - a shaman, a warrior, a seeker, a leader, a wanderer, a diviner, in some ways a loner.  Those were attributes that called to me. A couple of years ago I finally began to study the Elder Futhark runic system with more diligence and focus. On my husband's many jaunts to Sweden he has brought me back treasures such as a silver mjölnir pendant which I wear along with my elekes (sacred necklaces of the Orichas which are granted as part of one of the first initiations in the religion). In fact, in a sort of intercultural yin-yang, my husband also wears a mjölnir!

Santería is my religion, the set of traditions into which I am initiated through my god family. It is my heart; in important ways it forms the foundation from which I approach my life, and provides a framework within which I may come to understand (as much as any of us are truly able) my place in the universe. Honoring and learning about the Northern Tradition is one way in which I recognize my biological ancestry, and thus coexists harmoniously with my overall spiritual practice.

Interestingly, as I was writing this post I took a break, and as I was making some tea my husband came home and handed me a surprise package: a carved candle in the form of an elderly man, and a white and tan egg, also a candle. He said that the carved man reminded him of someone who could be my grandfather, and indeed when I saw it I thought of a European mariner. And the egg is connected to my Ángel de la Guarda, Obatalá. Beautiful synchronicities ;-)

A Breath of Sea Air

Saturday was a beautiful day. In the morning my husband and I stopped at our favorite local botanica for a few things. As usual, while there I ended up finding a number of extra goodies as well! The principal goal of our trip was for me to secure a few stones. I immediately located some precious finds: red coral, raw selenite, raw black tourmaline, desert rose, and snowflake obsidian.

While I was selecting my stones, Jorge was busy discussing important matters with Paula, the clerk and jeweler. As I approached the counter I realized that they were talking about azabaches - generally speaking, charms against the evil eye. "Good call," I thought, since I was supposed to get one months back and hadn't yet. In fact, we were planning to get one for each member of our family. Azabache is another word for jet (also called "black amber"), an ancient stone formed from the remains of decomposed wood, which has a high carbon content. It has been used through the ages and across many cultures to bring wisdom, protection, and healing. It is often combined with red coral, also widely used for protection. In Cuba, most babies don't leave the hospital without an azabache charm attached to their clothing. I myself used to own a silver and red coral bracelet, a gift from my mother from Italy for the purposes of deflecting unwanted attention.

We didn't see any in stock that were quite what we were looking for, so Paula went into the back room and returned with her beads and jewelry tools. In the end, we were able to make a custom order which she completed right in front of our eyes, which was a special treat. Our azabache beads were hand carved from California, and we chose naturally shaped red coral for the accent:

Custom-made azabache pendant

I gathered up a couple boxes of incense and a candle, and we were on our way. It was a really nice way to start the day.

We'd planned to take the kids out to the sea in the afternoon, so after lunch we gathered up chairs, a blanket, and some snacks, and we drove our new Fiat out to a beautiful, quiet, sparsely populated beach. We watched the pelicans fly overhead, and the little ones played in the surf for a while. We munched on cheese crackers and salted nori, and I pulled a few cards:

Wildwood Tarot and Earthbound Oracle at the sea

We drove back home under the setting sun, and settled in for the evening with good food, and some Antiques Roadshow. It's the little things. ;-)