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Random Heathen Ramblings: S5, EP7 - Nordic Mysticism (feat. Saga Erickson) · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:00
  Hello everyone and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:04
  podcast where we discuss all sorts of things Germanic heathen
• 0:07
  re related. My name is Jesse.
• 0:09
  I am your host. Let's get into it.
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  Visit our online store at the alvateer.com and discover the
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  beauty of mountain spirit. Welcome, welcome, welcome
• 1:08
  everybody. I'm very, very excited for this
• 1:10
  week's episode of the podcast and I hope you are too.
• 1:13
  I know I've shared some of the, you know on some of the social
• 1:18
  media platforms, Facebook, Instagram and other places by
• 1:22
  now. Our guest for this week and got
• 1:26
  a lot of good good feedback, a lot of friends, a lot of
• 1:29
  acquaintances, extended family for our guest today, maybe
• 1:35
  related family, I'm not sure, but she is well known in the
• 1:39
  Pagan and Heathen communities abroad.
• 1:42
  Her name is Saga Erickson and she is going to be talking with
• 1:47
  us today about a lot of things pertaining to her spirituality,
• 1:52
  her practices, some of the things that she has accomplished
• 1:54
  in the last 35 or more years of her practicing that her form of
• 2:00
  Heathenry. She is a practitioner of
• 2:04
  Seether. She is also proficient with the
• 2:07
  runes and not just the elder Futhark, but as I understand she
• 2:12
  also is is proficient with the use of the Oldham Celtic Runic
• 2:18
  system, Runic stabs. So today's podcast is going to
• 2:23
  be dabbling into the sort of Nordic mysticism side of
• 2:29
  Heathenry. I know this doesn't touch this
• 2:31
  particular topic, doesn't impact or or touch every single person
• 2:37
  in in Heathenry or even in Paganism as a whole, but it
• 2:40
  definitely is a part of a lot of people's practices.
• 2:43
  And I know a lot of folks are very interested in hearing what
• 2:47
  someone like Saga has to has to offer with all their years of
• 2:51
  experiences. So I'm very excited to have her
• 2:54
  on here. Thank you Saga for reaching out.
• 2:58
  Before we jump on here with her and and talk about some things
• 3:01
  and get to know her a bit and and and hear what she has to to
• 3:04
  talk about. Please be sure to if you like
• 3:06
  this podcast, whatever platform you're watching this on, if you
• 3:10
  can, you know give it an up, vote, save it, download it,
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  share it around. At the very least, I know for
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  that video a heart and thank you to my patrons here on Patreon.
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  As always, this is the only place right now that the full
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  video version of the podcast is available.
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  So I'll So for all you folks that are listening on Spotify or
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  wherever else you catch it, if you want to become a patron on
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  only costs a dollar. You know You don't have to renew
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  that dollar a pledge every month.
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  You can come and go as you please.
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  As I say all the time, you're under no obligation whatsoever
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  to pay that dollar every month. If you just want to pay at the
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  one time, get access to the videos, binge watch a few of
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  them, come back in a month or two, whatever, it's all up to
• 4:08
  you. But it's it's your choice.
• 4:09
  And all of the links for that are going to be in the show, the
• 4:13
  podcast show notes. So that link tree link that you
• 4:15
  see in the in the show notes down here, just click on that
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  link and you'll see everything that I have to offer, all of my
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  merchandise, all of my social media, where to follow the
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  podcast and become a patron on Patreon.
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  I don't say it every single time on the show, but as a reminder,
• 4:33
  if you have a voice, have a have a thought, have an idea, have a
• 4:37
  suggestion, you can get in touch with me one of two ways you can.
• 4:41
  The best way to do it when, especially when it comes to the
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  podcast is to either either e-mail me, that's Midgard
• 4:47
  Musings tn@gmail.com or you can call in that phone number is
• 4:54
  615-671-9832, so you can leave a voicemail on there.
• 5:01
  That phone number is, it's a Google Voice number, right.
• 5:04
  So you can call from wherever, I guess.
• 5:06
  I don't know, maybe, you know, standard rates do or may apply
• 5:10
  if you're calling, you know, internationally outside of the
• 5:13
  United States. But yeah, you can leave a
• 5:17
  voicemail anytime day or night and you know, a lot of times
• 5:22
  what I'll do is I'll share the audio here on the show.
• 5:25
  So if you have a thought, have an idea, have a suggestion or
• 5:27
  just want to share something, you know, love to hear.
• 5:31
  Listeners voices on the show would love to give you a shout
• 5:35
  out in that sort of way. So do remember please that it is
• 5:37
  available. You can do that anytime you'd
• 5:39
  like. But without further ado, I think
• 5:42
  I've done enough housekeeping when it comes to all of the the
• 5:46
  stuff that I have going on here. So without further ado, let's go
• 5:50
  ahead and welcome in Saga Ericsson as we talk about things
• 5:53
  like Sather Runes and all other sorts of Nordic mysticism.
• 5:59
  Here we go. All right folks, we are joined
• 6:03
  here today for the first time on the Random Heat and Ramblings
• 6:05
  podcast with Saga Ericsson up in the The UP area of.
• 6:11
  Wisconsin slash Michigan, as I understand, correct.
• 6:14
  Yes. Yeah.
• 6:15
  Way up, way up in the the, the, the snowy white north.
• 6:18
  Yeah. Not as much snow as wet, I would
• 6:21
  like, but yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:24
  But thank you. And.
• 6:26
  I'm happy for you to be here and I know a lot of folks that
• 6:29
  listen to this show and and watch it on Patreon.
• 6:33
  When I shared it on my socials this week, I've seen a lot of
• 6:37
  different people commenting their excitement of you coming
• 6:40
  on the show as well, so your reputation precedes you.
• 6:44
  That's very cool and I want to. Yeah.
• 6:48
  So Speaking of your reputation, you know you and I have talked
• 6:52
  more so recently than we have in the past.
• 6:54
  However, we see each other long distance through social media.
• 6:59
  I know you your involvement with I think Awake in the North and
• 7:02
  maybe some other, you know, groups or whatnot that have that
• 7:07
  have a social media presence. I've seen your name and your
• 7:09
  presence appear in many things. But as far as like your
• 7:12
  reputation is concerned, you've got a lot of years of experience
• 7:17
  with a lot of different things. But today we're going to kind
• 7:20
  of, I think lean into the the Nordic mysticism side of your
• 7:25
  practice. You are a safe Kona or Volva.
• 7:30
  I think some people would use those terms interchangeably, but
• 7:32
  maybe you can help separate the two or define the two more
• 7:37
  clearly for for the listeners and the viewers.
• 7:39
  Today you do runes you, you've got art, I think you've got
• 7:44
  books, you, you do a lot of different things.
• 7:46
  So you're a busy person and you got a lot of things in the hands
• 7:49
  in the pot, I guess, is the, the.
• 7:51
  Term I'm trying to go with I there's a lot of, a lot of
• 7:55
  diversity that is kind of all in my senior years now, melding
• 8:01
  together to kind of a masterpiece purpose.
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  And as far as a distinction between a vulva and a safe Kona,
• 8:12
  it's really, really difficult to parse which is which.
• 8:17
  It's going to depend on people's opinions.
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  And as you know, in the hidden community, the opinions on any
• 8:25
  given subject are are wide-ranging as to what's Canon.
• 8:29
  What's UPG? And there isn't quite frankly
• 8:34
  enough historically known about either save the work of a save
• 8:38
  Kona or a vulva. Other than they were considered
• 8:41
  witches, they were considered shamanic, and they often in.
• 8:49
  In our antiquity, we travel village to village to village as
• 8:53
  an honored guest to help with healing, to give portions on the
• 8:57
  future and and the like. And it's not much different.
• 9:01
  Today. I I usually refer to myself more
• 9:06
  as a, a heathen hedge witch, which to me is kind of like an
• 9:10
  umbrella term, that is, it encompasses the work of a safe
• 9:15
  Kona, a vulva, A githya, a village witch.
• 9:20
  Basically I'm a I'm A and basically the village witch and
• 9:25
  the the hedge witch portion of it is kind of a an esoteric
• 9:31
  canning of being on the edge of the world's, so to speak, which
• 9:38
  is what a shamanic practitioner does.
• 9:41
  We're on the edge of the world and we travel to the different
• 9:44
  world, you know, usually within our own minds.
• 9:47
  But I think acid trip, it's all in there.
• 9:52
  Right. Yeah, Yeah, for sure.
• 9:55
  You know, when I think of you, you you mentioned you know like
• 9:58
  historically and and whatnot the the Volvas were like like you
• 10:03
  mentioned like they were on the edge.
• 10:05
  They weren't part of the village society.
• 10:07
  You know they they were without and they would come and they
• 10:10
  would go or the OR I think even the people would sometimes go to
• 10:13
  them. But I think we hear more of them
• 10:15
  coming periodically to the village for whatever, right,
• 10:20
  whether it was for divination or for for medicine needs or or
• 10:24
  anything that sort. But they were definitely not
• 10:27
  ingrained into the everyday culture, the everyday goings on
• 10:31
  of of of the societal unit there, right?
• 10:35
  They were both feared and respected and you know when they
• 10:39
  this going household to household farmstead to Farmstead
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  was was how we made our living and whether it was putting a
• 10:52
  roof over their heads or feeding them you know they were held in
• 10:55
  high regard. I just wish there was more that
• 10:59
  we knew about how they practiced.
• 11:02
  So you know in a modern age I'm you know we are doing a lot of
• 11:07
  experimenting we're becoming the the lore riders now we're
• 11:12
  becoming in in a modern age as we're trying to recreate
• 11:18
  recreate we have to use an awful lot of UPG in our own
• 11:21
  imagination to reconstruct what it may have been like.
• 11:28
  And I I've been admiring some of the work of my peers in some of
• 11:34
  the traditions that have been started it's it's been quite an
• 11:41
  evolutionary journey watching how as a true Heathenry and the
• 11:48
  the rambling trails of metaphysical practices has grown
• 11:55
  just since I've started walking the path.
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  So when one of my, one of my contemporaries that I have just
• 12:02
  a great deal of respect for her is Kari touring, you know, like
• 12:08
  she she's so a wonderful performer that has been
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  establishing something called vulva stuff.
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  I've had the great opportunity to be able to work with her
• 12:19
  where she will work with a a staff and there's Gaulder
• 12:24
  singing happening as she's telling stories.
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  And you know so much of our practices, we're telling
• 12:31
  stories, we're storytellers. So yeah.
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  Isn't the isn't the term vulva? Doesn't it mean basically a a
• 12:39
  staff or or there's a staff involved right.
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  Like that was the primary wand or staff was the primary tool of
• 12:48
  of the vulva. Yeah, and it's it's an
• 12:51
  interesting, interesting concept because it's in the the staff or
• 12:56
  staff in itself is very much a runic type of implement, 'cause
• 13:01
  you've got this wonderful straight line that you know,
• 13:05
  it's the ISO rune and from this particular rune, all of the
• 13:10
  other runes are made. So it's this still point of of
• 13:15
  practice that connects both earth and sky like the Irminsil.
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  Yeah, the great tree that connects Earth and sky rooted.
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  Yeah, it's it's just so fascinating to me.
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  I. Could Oh, yeah, yeah, that's I I
• 13:31
  I love talking about and at first I love talking to people
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  like yourself that have been been doing this for some time.
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  It's not like, hey, I just, you know picked up a a book of runes
• 13:45
  and and and bought myself some gems and you know did mushrooms
• 13:49
  one time and hey, now I'm a shaman or now I'm a voter.
• 13:52
  Now I, you know, I had this one profound experience and I guess
• 13:56
  I'm a safe Conan now. Like, no, there there are.
• 13:58
  I think it's dancing experiences.
• 14:02
  Yeah. Lifetimes and years and years of
• 14:05
  of arduous study and blood, sweat and tears and yeah.
• 14:11
  Yeah, the the blood, the sweat, the tears, right.
• 14:13
  The ordeal, the things that you have to go through to put
• 14:17
  yourself through those trials. To be.
• 14:21
  Considered worthy enough to to for the people to call you such
• 14:24
  because I'm sure if if you're up in the you know close to the OR
• 14:29
  the UP area of of was it Wisconsin Michigan you're you're
• 14:33
  pretty remote from from from everybody but you do have a
• 14:39
  community right like you do have a small plan group whatever that
• 14:42
  you that you work with right. So they have been blessed enough
• 14:47
  to have a person nearby to them that they have entrusted the the
• 14:51
  responsibilities of the vogue, of the geethia, of this sort of
• 14:55
  spiritual healer and and leader in a way to to help them with
• 15:01
  all of their spiritual well-being and and and healing
• 15:05
  right. It's it's a heady kind of
• 15:08
  responsibility. Sorry my my thingy tipped.
• 15:16
  Yeah I locally I'm I I run a group called the Northern Lights
• 15:20
  Collective and we also have a Facebook presence that's that
• 15:25
  has a lot more people than what gather locally and I my group
• 15:34
  itself is more of a universalist group.
• 15:37
  But again I'm also a Guithya with Awake in the North.
• 15:42
  But my local group being more universal, I'm not terribly
• 15:46
  picky about who their gods are or what path they're on.
• 15:51
  I want them to explore their path, their way, and fortunately
• 15:59
  I've been doing it long enough that I hope I can point people
• 16:04
  in the right direction or the direction they need to be on.
• 16:08
  I'm not. I'm not the kind of person
• 16:11
  that's you must practice my way and only my way, and this is the
• 16:14
  Canyon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:16
  It's like, no, man. It's like our spirituality is
• 16:19
  such an individual thing, and I really want to encourage people
• 16:24
  to look at it, explore it, feel it, experiment, become
• 16:29
  scientists with their own spiritual practices, whether
• 16:33
  they're Nordic or whether they're Celtic or whether
• 16:36
  they're Vedantic. In my in my husband's case,
• 16:40
  which that's that makes for interesting conversations in
• 16:43
  this house. Vedantic philosophies paired
• 16:46
  with Nordic philosophies. They really, really are good
• 16:52
  companions and funny thing. Is I'm less pedantic now than I?
• 16:57
  Used to Yes, my my husband. He's he's less pedantic as a
• 17:01
  Vedantin than he was as a heathen.
• 17:05
  Or everything else that's a tongue twister.
• 17:07
  Try to say that three. Times, Yeah, the the, the
• 17:10
  pedantic Vedantin. That's fun, right?
• 17:15
  Because you've got a you know I I've always come back to when
• 17:19
  you know people ask me or or want to talk about how should I
• 17:23
  do this what should I do with oh I don't know like how do I give
• 17:29
  you know what do I blow it to the gods?
• 17:31
  Where or how do I blow it to the gods?
• 17:32
  What do I give this God, that goddess that's thing that or the
• 17:35
  other. And a lot of what I fall back to
• 17:38
  is, well, what's your what's your Harth cult practice?
• 17:42
  Yes. And I get this sometimes.
• 17:44
  I get, well, I haven't really, I don't really know yet or I'm
• 17:48
  still trying to figure that out. And I and I said, well then
• 17:50
  that's where you need to be at. You need to, you need to
• 17:53
  establish your Harth cult. You can maybe get inspiration
• 17:56
  from others or maybe like I wouldn't say, follow in someone
• 18:01
  else's footsteps because you got to, you know, be your own person
• 18:04
  and and carve your own way. But you can maybe be inspired by
• 18:08
  others, but that's where it needs to start.
• 18:09
  Otherwise, you're going to just be.
• 18:11
  You're not gonna have a foundation or a root system to
• 18:13
  to to think into, right? Right, like I in my own group we
• 18:19
  we follow the the classic 8 Pagan holidays mainly 'cause
• 18:25
  that's the most familiar. But I introduce things like a
• 18:29
  Nordic bloat symbol. Symbol is particularly popular
• 18:34
  among my people, but I also introduce a classic Wiccan
• 18:40
  ritual. Or you know, there are different
• 18:44
  ways to practice, there are different ways to be spiritual.
• 18:47
  So it's it is one of those things where I encourage it and
• 18:51
  it's like a hearth culture, what your heart, heart culture is.
• 18:55
  There's a lot of people out there that are solitaries.
• 18:57
  I started out as a solitary. It's like, well, every religion
• 19:02
  starts somewhere and we create the gods in our images.
• 19:08
  You know? When it comes right down to it,
• 19:09
  that's we. We are creating this and we're
• 19:13
  creating our traditions and our practices.
• 19:16
  And when we find something that fits and feels right, then we
• 19:19
  share it. I wonder why or I I often wonder
• 19:23
  if that's the reason why we see so many so, so such nuance
• 19:27
  between things, right, and and similarities between cultures or
• 19:30
  religions. It all started from somewhere.
• 19:33
  And that that somewhere was at 1.1.
• 19:36
  Person was probably sitting out in the woods or or sitting
• 19:40
  around a fire. They had an experience.
• 19:42
  They felt something. They saw something.
• 19:44
  They told someone else out. They told someone else in their
• 19:46
  village or whatever about it. That person was like, oh that
• 19:50
  feels good. That sounds right.
• 19:52
  I want to experience and that and then they went on their way
• 19:54
  and then they bring next thing you know two became 4, became 10
• 19:58
  and then you know so. But it all started from that one
• 20:01
  experience and I think a lot of what ends up.
• 20:07
  Manifesting itself through us as individuals when we reach a
• 20:10
  certain point of of of connectedness to ourselves as we
• 20:15
  we, we are, we are divine beings.
• 20:18
  There is divinity within us. There is, there's a, there's the
• 20:21
  sacredness within us. So when we find this religion or
• 20:25
  we when we find the this, this higher power, it's I think a lot
• 20:29
  of it has to do with us tapping into that part of ourselves that
• 20:33
  is our higher self, you know and and it's just manifesting in
• 20:37
  different ways through different means, different cultures
• 20:40
  etcetera, right. See, it reminds me of the line.
• 20:44
  And on the, in the Runetalk, Self unto self, you know, small
• 20:49
  S capital S say always that that that self sacrifice of our
• 20:56
  everyday, self two and four, that higher self, that higher
• 21:01
  consciousness that is tapped into weird, It's tapped into
• 21:06
  Oralog. It's tapped into the hummingya
• 21:09
  of all of our people. And it's it's fascinating to
• 21:16
  think about. And I don't know there's a movie
• 21:19
  that came out probably 20 years ago, Gerard Butler, Beowulf and
• 21:24
  Grendel, another store. You know, it's it happens to be
• 21:28
  one of my favorites because it's a really different and
• 21:31
  sympathetic view of Grendel the monster.
• 21:35
  But what was one of the most fascinating and telling things
• 21:40
  is throughout the entire movie, you're getting kind of a slice
• 21:45
  of life picture of the conversion to Christianity.
• 21:51
  And also during that entire time, there's the Bard that is
• 21:57
  telling the stories and this oral tradition throughout the
• 22:01
  entire movie he is evolving where he starts talking about
• 22:05
  the exploits of Beowulf in the beginning of the movie and in
• 22:09
  the boat back to Denmark, he's talking about the exploits of
• 22:14
  Christ. And it's like interesting,
• 22:19
  interesting slice of kind of an anthropological.
• 22:28
  That's it, yes. Yeah, another tongue twister.
• 22:32
  Yes, tongue twister, Vedantic. Pedantic was much easier.
• 22:38
  We'll see what we guess, what we can come up with along the way,
• 22:40
  right? Yes.
• 22:42
  Yeah, that happens. I don't know, like the the Old
• 22:45
  Saxon, the Halian, I don't know if you're familiar with that.
• 22:49
  But it's basically a Germanic retelling of the Gospels, right?
• 22:56
  Jesus and his disciples and and the Halian you know Jesus is a
• 23:01
  Dalton he's a he's a Chieftain and his disciples are his thanes
• 23:04
  and and and stuff and there's this really heavily Germanic
• 23:09
  heathen overtone to the stories of of of Jesus you know of
• 23:16
  Christ as as as that because of the cultural reviews at the time
• 23:20
  you know and and how does the stories were portrayed and.
• 23:24
  It and it doesn't make it wrong because it's one of the things
• 23:28
  that's in our modern society, we get boxed in by the written
• 23:34
  word. It's like Snorri, Snorri,
• 23:37
  Snorri, Sturluson, he did. He did kind of a disservice to
• 23:45
  our lore in writing it down because it became static.
• 23:51
  If it's not on the lore, it's not true.
• 23:54
  It's like guys, this used to be an oral tradition.
• 23:58
  How many different ways was Odin portrayed before he was written
• 24:05
  down? How many different tribes saw
• 24:08
  him differently than the way he was written?
• 24:12
  How many centuries did he evolve and change into what he was once
• 24:18
  he became written word? That's an interesting point.
• 24:23
  I never really thought about it. How the the the the stories, the
• 24:26
  lore, the myths, what's in the poetic and the prose.
• 24:29
  Eddas, you you say, like they became static.
• 24:33
  It's almost like you kind of limited the grandeur of the
• 24:38
  stories by writing it down and not allowing for the expansion
• 24:42
  of poetic license or being able to really tell a story.
• 24:46
  It's It's why so much of the Druidic lore was never written.
• 24:51
  It was memorized and passed on, memory after memory after
• 24:55
  memory, through the Druidic universities in Celtic, England.
• 25:02
  So yeah, these these oral traditions are something that
• 25:06
  once it's written down, it becomes static.
• 25:09
  Look at the biblical arguments that happen translation by
• 25:14
  translation by translation, where you know, who knows what
• 25:19
  the original Aramaic and Greek actually said at this point.
• 25:24
  Yep. And how did those stories
• 25:27
  evolve? Well, I think, yeah, I think a
• 25:29
  lot of what is being discovered is that what can be translated
• 25:34
  from the original, whether, you know, Sanskrit, Aramaic, right.
• 25:37
  All of the ancient languages that these manuscripts were
• 25:42
  written in that have been translated and retranslated and
• 25:46
  revised over the centuries. Well, I think of what it's being
• 25:50
  discovered is that it's been messed up a lot.
• 25:54
  Those. Original manuscripts, you know
• 25:56
  they they they didn't translate words correctly into into
• 25:59
  English. They were were pushing the
• 26:01
  narrative or or. Or.
• 26:04
  End on things, you know, and politics.
• 26:07
  Exactly, exactly, exactly. Which we still see now and
• 26:11
  today. I mean, that's an old song, but.
• 26:14
  Yeah. Now 1.
• 26:16
  Interesting. Sorry, go ahead.
• 26:18
  No, no, I'm good. Go ahead.
• 26:20
  Oh, well, I was going to say one interesting thing about when it
• 26:22
  comes to, you know, having things written down is learning.
• 26:27
  You know, because so many people learn.
• 26:29
  I want to, I want to read it. I want to know what it says.
• 26:32
  How I should do XY and Z. And it's important too.
• 26:36
  It is right. There's I think there's a place
• 26:38
  for it because obviously I don't think and and maybe you can
• 26:41
  expound on this I I wouldn't expect someone to have you know
• 26:46
  someone like yourself with 35 years or more of of of of of
• 26:50
  background in something like you know being a safe Kona and then
• 26:54
  serving as a as a vulva and and I give you I don't think you
• 26:57
  would have sure you need like those real life experiences to
• 27:02
  do it but there has to be somewhere that you start right
• 27:05
  and and what what was that like like where where did you start
• 27:08
  with your discovering that that this was the path for you where
• 27:12
  how did that begin was it in the books was it in talking to
• 27:15
  someone that kind of mentored you or.
• 27:18
  It it's kind of a funny story. I've always been a seeker and
• 27:24
  I've always known there was more to spirituality than what I
• 27:29
  learned in Catholic school. As I I come from a very Catholic
• 27:34
  background. I as a little child, I actually
• 27:39
  wanted to be a priest as well as an artist.
• 27:42
  Those were, you know, every kid has their goals.
• 27:44
  Me, it was artist and priest instead of fireman and nurse,
• 27:48
  you know. And I was about 10 years old
• 27:53
  when I had the rude awakening that girls can't be priests and
• 27:59
  they can't marry rude. So anyhow made these.
• 28:03
  Girls, anyway. Yeah, so anyhow, I'd always been
• 28:11
  a seeker and in in my many moves when I was in my mid 20s I found
• 28:20
  myself in the middle of the UP away from my birth family for
• 28:27
  for the very first time as a young adult and a young mother
• 28:31
  and working in a a local establishment.
• 28:37
  I I I ran photo labs and I was a photographer for for the 1st 25
• 28:42
  years of my career. So running this photo lab, you
• 28:46
  see all kinds of people. And I started being courted by a
• 28:51
  Jehovah's Witness couple who introduced me to witchcraft.
• 29:01
  The JWS introduced you to witchcraft.
• 29:03
  That's an interesting story, yeah.
• 29:04
  Yes, yes, it's it's, it's it's kind of kind of like the
• 29:08
  cliffhanger here. It's like it's the Jehovah's
• 29:13
  Witnesses fault that I'm a witch.
• 29:16
  It's time to testify. Write a letter to Kingdom Hall,
• 29:20
  right, so she wasn't enrolled in the Jehovah's Witness
• 29:26
  protection. Program, Yeah.
• 29:30
  They have one of those. Yes.
• 29:31
  No, I don't think I wish they did.
• 29:34
  And anyhow, I being a seeker, I'll read anything.
• 29:39
  And they lent me this book that was a really, really good and
• 29:45
  comprehensive encyclopedic volume of every world religion.
• 29:51
  Absolutely an unbiased definition of all the world
• 29:56
  religions. Now as a true itself wasn't in
• 29:59
  there 'cause this was 1989, you know, as a true at that time was
• 30:04
  a blip on the map and Wicca was just becoming cool.
• 30:10
  And I'm in the UP of all places, so my sources for knowledge were
• 30:15
  really, really limited. And in this rapid fire of
• 30:20
  synchronistic events, the Jehovah's Witnesses presented me
• 30:25
  with a book. I came across the definition for
• 30:27
  Wicca and witchcraft. It's like, Oh my God, that
• 30:30
  actually sounds like something that's living inside of my
• 30:34
  spirituality. I'm a seeker.
• 30:37
  I'm an explorer. I'm a scientist.
• 30:39
  I have to get my hands and feet and feelers and everything into
• 30:44
  the minutiae of my spirituality. To me, it's a very visceral
• 30:48
  thing. And this book had these entries
• 30:51
  that explained something I felt. And then all of a sudden there's
• 30:56
  another person comes here. Here's Scott Cunningham's book
• 30:59
  for the solitary practitioner. And then from a word to a word.
• 31:05
  By 1992, I I had discovered the ruins.
• 31:10
  And it's like I did not know. I did not.
• 31:13
  I did not know There was a whole body of Nordic lore and all its
• 31:20
  deliciousness until 1992, when I first came across a set of rooms
• 31:26
  and it's like, Oh my God, it was just one of these palpable
• 31:31
  experiences where it's like and so I was absorbing everything I
• 31:40
  could get my hands on. And between 1989 and 1992,
• 31:46
  Internet wasn't a thing yet. So it was Interlibrary Loan and
• 31:51
  Llewellyn publications and wiser publications where you could
• 31:54
  find a minimum of the books out there.
• 32:00
  So I I just absorbed everything I possibly could and have never
• 32:07
  been shy about putting things into practice.
• 32:11
  One of the one of the books that I found most influential in
• 32:15
  these very beginnings was something that people often are
• 32:18
  referred to as Uncle Bucky's Big Blue Book and yeah, Ray Ray
• 32:23
  Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, which has got a
• 32:26
  pretty decent listing and definitions of the major Pagan
• 32:33
  practices. I don't, I haven't seen, I have
• 32:39
  not read the book now in close to 30 years.
• 32:41
  So I don't know if it's been updated at all.
• 32:44
  I'll have to ask some of my people that have been buying the
• 32:47
  book lately. So but yeah, books, books, books
• 32:52
  and find the right people came into my path.
• 32:59
  It's, you know sound kind of cliche, but magically, you know,
• 33:03
  at the right times of of my learning and evolution, it's I
• 33:08
  found my foot upon the path. So as I'm learning the runes,
• 33:13
  also to make a friend that has all of these wonderful lore
• 33:16
  books and he's got books on the Eddas and he's got books on
• 33:21
  North Norse mythology and introduces me to Freya Aswin's
• 33:26
  work, which I know she's a little bit controversial.
• 33:29
  But her first book, Leaves of IG Drussell, was really well
• 33:35
  written in, you know, and gave me so much passion for the depth
• 33:42
  within the runes. So yes.
• 33:45
  Yeah, give me just one second. Hold on.
• 33:48
  So books, book learning, All kinds of books.
• 33:52
  Rune books. You.
• 33:53
  I think you said you were. You you you picked up.
• 33:55
  It was a Freya Aswin's. Yeah she was one of the first
• 33:58
  people that I I found a book on runes because at the at the time
• 34:05
  I had discovered runes, I had just settled in northern in the
• 34:10
  Minocqua area of northern Wisconsin.
• 34:16
  And so there's still, in 1992, not a lot of books available,
• 34:23
  especially in one of these little bitty villages that book
• 34:28
  the the book world. Their their section on the
• 34:31
  occult was laughable at best. Right.
• 34:37
  It just wasn't really much active things going on in the US
• 34:41
  at that time. So I think a lot of it was being
• 34:44
  pulled out of from like the Wiccan circles, right.
• 34:50
  Like a lot of the Wiccan stuff that be that was popular.
• 34:52
  We're just Oh well, we'll just throw the the Norse veneer over
• 34:55
  it and. Yeah.
• 34:57
  And it's like initially that kind of plug and play, kind of
• 35:02
  spirituality is OK, but it it kind of lacks substance.
• 35:08
  And when, when, when I kind of jumped from Wicca to Ozatru, it
• 35:15
  was around 1990, two 1993 that I I realized that my spiritual
• 35:22
  home is Nordic to me. It's it is my my meat and my
• 35:27
  potatoes. It's, you know, it's it's got
• 35:29
  all of the the delicious research and lore and everything
• 35:35
  that that I crave. And the ruins, I mean the the
• 35:40
  ruins, even after 35 years. It is a continuous learning and
• 35:46
  continuous growth even after, you know, working with them for
• 35:52
  decades. So very, very exciting.
• 35:57
  And you also have, so the runes meaning the.
• 36:01
  I guess the. Elder food are are they're the
• 36:03
  more popular ones who yeah. I in the.
• 36:06
  Divination and I I. Don't do a lot of divination to
• 36:11
  to tell you the truth. I actually use my runes more for
• 36:20
  guidance. Conversations with the with the
• 36:23
  deities, conversations with the with the land spirits.
• 36:28
  Conversations even with plants if.
• 36:31
  But I don't do a lot of divination.
• 36:37
  With the runes or just in general?
• 36:39
  Both. You know, in in general I don't
• 36:41
  do a lot of divination and but with the runes, I do use them as
• 36:46
  a teaching tool for, you know, greater understanding.
• 36:52
  It's like, you know, there's such a wealth even right within
• 36:56
  the understandings of all the different rune poems, whether
• 37:00
  it's they're Norwegian or they are Icelandic or the the Old
• 37:04
  English rune poems. There's so many layers of of
• 37:09
  understanding within these things that's just endlessly
• 37:12
  fascinating to me. Some would say that being a safe
• 37:18
  Kona and a Vulva and a Githia would be like you would have to
• 37:24
  use runes in in in in the in divination as part of that that
• 37:31
  office. And you're saying that for you
• 37:32
  at least you you don't. Is there a particular?
• 37:35
  Is there like a particular reason why you don't never spoke
• 37:38
  to you? You don't see there being any
• 37:40
  application for it? Like what's your experience with
• 37:44
  that wait? My experience with Divination,
• 37:53
  it's it's kind of one of those weird crossing the line kind of
• 37:59
  things and. And if we don't want any, if
• 38:05
  it's a topic, you don't want a breach.
• 38:07
  Then then that's. True.
• 38:09
  I just want to kind of put my brain in the perspective it
• 38:14
  where I don't sound rude and insulting to clients.
• 38:17
  You know, Oh yeah, no, I totally get.
• 38:19
  That, oh, this is like I've I I get a really bad taste in my
• 38:25
  mouth over Divination because there's a certain desperation to
• 38:32
  the very practice that ends up being predatory.
• 38:37
  And the last thing I want to do to my communities is be a
• 38:43
  predator. And you know, divination, you're
• 38:49
  pretty much giving people permission to look into their
• 38:53
  soul. I'm uncomfortable doing that.
• 38:57
  So I don't do palmistry anymore. I don't do tarot cards.
• 39:01
  I will. I will do divination from time
• 39:06
  to time for people, but I really don't like to, because sometimes
• 39:15
  you don't know what they really want to hear, you know?
• 39:19
  And it's like, have you, have you ever seen the movie Ghost
• 39:27
  Whoopi Goldberg's character as the psychic where all of a
• 39:31
  sudden she's starting to have some real psychic experiences,
• 39:34
  but most of the time she's just a bullshit artist.
• 39:38
  I don't want to be the bullshit artist, and I also don't want to
• 39:43
  'cause people to be insecure about something.
• 39:46
  I may tell them I I'm very progressive in it.
• 39:51
  Things are happening now. We work on now the future scold
• 39:58
  the things that should be, the things that should come to pass.
• 40:02
  I don't want to push a lever either way in that regard.
• 40:07
  By giving somebody a reading, that's going to hurt them, you
• 40:11
  know? For me, it's a matter of ethics.
• 40:14
  I see. So do you think that the the use
• 40:18
  of because so like I look at it in a in a couple of different
• 40:22
  ways myself, right? Being someone who has found an
• 40:27
  interest and A and a not not. It's more than an interest like
• 40:31
  I was. I was given a moment in my
• 40:34
  practice in in in my path. That was a very clear indication
• 40:39
  for me that I needed to learn the runes.
• 40:42
  Not just like the runic alphabets, not just the rune
• 40:46
  poems, but learn the mysteries, right?
• 40:48
  That's what Runer is, is these, these are mysteries, right?
• 40:51
  Learn the mysteries. And part of that learning, part
• 40:54
  of that study, have been for me the use of the runic characters
• 41:01
  through castings, right? Casting runes reading runes in
• 41:06
  that in in that degree of of of divination.
• 41:09
  I understand where you're talking about in terms of, at
• 41:12
  least from what I'm hearing it almost sounds like, you know you
• 41:14
  don't want to be that one to give somebody something that's
• 41:19
  going to push them in a direction that they wouldn't
• 41:22
  have gone naturally. Right.
• 41:24
  We are shapers of would you would you agree at least?
• 41:27
  I don't want to put words in. I would say you would agree, But
• 41:29
  would you agree that we are Shapers of of of weird?
• 41:33
  We shape destiny, Destiny, weird, whatever you know you
• 41:36
  wanna call it. But we we are the Shapers of
• 41:38
  weird. Right.
• 41:40
  And I I I take that very seriously.
• 41:43
  And I don't, you know, it's one of those things where I as a
• 41:47
  vulva, I have a moral obligation to do no harm to my people and
• 41:54
  to my planet as much as is within my ability to do so or
• 42:01
  not do so, if if that makes sense.
• 42:04
  It's like so I I take it very seriously.
• 42:08
  So it's like the readings in general to me have have a more
• 42:16
  frivolous flavor than they should.
• 42:23
  You know, it's like to me. Tell me my future.
• 42:30
  No, no, the runes. Don't do that anyway.
• 42:34
  It's it's telling you potentials and possibilities.
• 42:37
  Now I will tell you how I do use the runes because that that
• 42:41
  might get that might give you a, a, a, a different perspective of
• 42:46
  how I'm seeing the world because like like I say I've seen so
• 42:52
  many charlatans that will do readings for people.
• 42:56
  I don't wanna be that I I want to be more of a I want to be a
• 43:01
  shelter in the storm basically, rather than, you know, it's
• 43:06
  like, here's your destiny. Like, I'm not trying to fix you.
• 43:11
  I'm not trying to tell you like tell you what to do that you to
• 43:14
  fix yourself. I'm trying to give you the tools
• 43:19
  and and make you capable of doing it yourself right?
• 43:22
  Yes, yeah, having the tools so that you know, giving them the
• 43:26
  tools so that they have the hunger, they have the drive to
• 43:31
  an underground tree, you know, you know.
• 43:34
  Anyhow, I'm a, I'm a an avid, avid avid journaler.
• 43:39
  I journal, journal, journal. And every morning I do have a
• 43:44
  special spiritual time set aside that I will do my rune work and
• 43:55
  I do rune work for here and now and I have several different
• 43:58
  sets that I have different purposes for.
• 44:02
  And it's for me, it's a matter of feeling which one I'll use on
• 44:06
  a given day. Like lately I'm I've been
• 44:11
  working on writing a book and I'm teaching a ruined workshop
• 44:15
  to to my local group and it's it's going hand in hand with my
• 44:19
  book. To me this is a very cerebral
• 44:21
  process, so I need the help of gods like Odin and Frigg.
• 44:28
  To me they are the more cerebral of you know, the A's here are
• 44:33
  more cerebral, where in my world view the the Vanek gods are more
• 44:38
  earthly like the life processes and all that good stuff.
• 44:44
  Anyhow, because I've been focusing so much on more
• 44:48
  cerebral things, I've been calling upon Odin and I have a
• 44:54
  set of rooms that I have specifically for him, 'cause
• 44:59
  they happen to be the first set I made.
• 45:01
  So as an example, I've got room for oh, then I've got a set of
• 45:07
  rooms for Frigg and I will pull one from each to, you know, it's
• 45:13
  like I have a question, it's like how do I handle this and
• 45:16
  such? And I'll pull one from each to
• 45:18
  get their perspectives and it it's just kind of a unique thing
• 45:25
  'cause for me in my head it becomes a conversation between
• 45:28
  the two. So as an example, I'm gonna pull
• 45:32
  up in my journal and. Thank you for being willing to
• 45:37
  to talk about this to this degree too.
• 45:39
  This is exciting. Thank you I I was.
• 45:44
  I'm a little self-conscious about all of this, but at the
• 45:48
  same. Though I.
• 45:48
  Understand. I mean, there's so many cool
• 45:52
  things in this life that I'd I'd love to share.
• 45:56
  And if if I can be an authentic human showing how I practice and
• 46:05
  that this is not the 100% way another person is going to go,
• 46:10
  huh. Maybe I can experiment with how
• 46:13
  I practice. Maybe I can do this.
• 46:16
  Maybe I can try that. Maybe I can use my imagination.
• 46:20
  Maybe I can journey. You know the possibilities.
• 46:23
  I want people to know that there is a vast array of ways to be a
• 46:29
  heathen, be a Christian, be a Hindu.
• 46:32
  You know, there are many, many ways to be an intense spiritual
• 46:36
  being. So, you know, back to these
• 46:39
  ruins. Usually I I will.
• 46:43
  I will set myself up my own little sacred space and it's
• 46:50
  like today. Today I sit with Odin and Frigg
• 46:53
  beneath the tree and I'm honored by their presence.
• 46:58
  And of course I I I always have my growly Vikings playing.
• 47:02
  So at the at the time one of the Dannheim songs happened to be
• 47:05
  streaming and I have to dance to all this 'cause I'm a crazy
• 47:08
  person. And anyhow I have these words
• 47:16
  that'll come to me as I'm doing this that I don't know if
• 47:20
  they're mine. They're my imagination is just
• 47:23
  you know free thinking but words from the wise.
• 47:28
  And so I I first pulled from my olden Meg the room.
• 47:32
  Now these now these generally means need and my my question
• 47:37
  was relating to can I manage some of the tasks before me when
• 47:44
  it comes to teaching my my people an introductory rune
• 47:48
  class. It's like how do I do justice to
• 47:51
  something that for me is larger than life.
• 47:55
  You know, I wanted justice to this so the first rune I got was
• 48:00
  nauthis. And then from my my frigga bag I
• 48:03
  pulled the rune algis and algis. You know the elhas, the Elkhorn,
• 48:10
  the, you know, a protection rune.
• 48:12
  But it's also the rune of Heimdal, who is a teacher of
• 48:15
  mankind. So what I got out of this
• 48:19
  particular read is that out of need?
• 48:24
  I've already been kindling the need fire within my own little
• 48:29
  group. And you know, I mentor an awful
• 48:32
  lot of people on the side as they find their way on their
• 48:36
  paths. So it's like, I'm doing valuable
• 48:39
  work here, and sometimes it seems really big, but then I'll
• 48:43
  have ruins like this, like it's necessary work now these, it's
• 48:46
  necessary. All these.
• 48:49
  I'm teaching, I'm, I'm helping to perpetuate the next
• 48:54
  generations of seekers of learners, and that's kind of a
• 48:59
  heady responsibility. Now, there's a bit of ambiguity
• 49:03
  to this read, because my very first set of ruins weren't as
• 49:08
  clear as they could be, and I got now these mixed up with Gay
• 49:12
  Boo, and so now I have an additional kind of weird and
• 49:21
  winky level of kenning from Odin himself.
• 49:28
  It's like, is it need or is it a gift for a gift?
• 49:32
  Is it a reciprocity for, you know, the works or you know
• 49:36
  which? Which is it?
• 49:37
  Is this the need or the gift or the reciprocity?
• 49:41
  It's like and it's all this jumble of yes, it's just like
• 49:46
  yes, do it, teach it, be it to the best of your ability.
• 49:52
  And it's not gonna be perfect. Yeah, someone else can make it
• 49:56
  perfect, but it'll give that seed.
• 49:59
  I don't think a lot of us want perfection.
• 50:01
  I think a lot of us want. You need the challenges.
• 50:05
  Yeah, you know, like I want that rough cut hewn piece of
• 50:11
  something to work off of. Like give me a chunk of stone,
• 50:15
  give me a hunk of wood or whatever, and I'll work on it.
• 50:18
  But like just that raw material, you know, and it's like hearing
• 50:22
  you talk about that, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of touching my
• 50:27
  fascination with with the runes also 'cause, you know, you see
• 50:30
  now these and and similarities, even if it wasn't so clearly
• 50:34
  made in the rune set when you made it, how similar that and
• 50:38
  the Gabo rune look in appearance.
• 50:42
  But when you think of it right, what the, the, the Gabo rune
• 50:46
  means is gift, right? And the the, the reciprocal
• 50:49
  nature of a gift, how a gift always seeks a gift in return.
• 50:54
  There is some necessity to that. There is some and necessary and
• 50:57
  needful things, because if you're not, then the balance is
• 51:00
  tipped and and the scales are no longer in in in favor of one
• 51:05
  another, right. So there is a need, there is a
• 51:06
  necessity, there is necessary action to be happening for the
• 51:12
  gift exchange to be maintained, you know, and so it's an
• 51:17
  interesting point to to take there.
• 51:20
  Yeah. So it's like fun fun.
• 51:23
  You know it just it just plain takes the depths of of
• 51:26
  understanding with these things even deeper.
• 51:30
  And I'm, I'm a rebel. I work with the Om too.
• 51:35
  To me, I I I've always considered Druids, Celts, the
• 51:40
  kissing cousins of of the Norse. You know there's you know it's
• 51:45
  and because we as humans have always been travelers and
• 51:50
  collectors of lore and knowledge and curiosities, we can't help
• 51:55
  but influence each other. Look at the art.
• 51:57
  You know Celtic not work. Nordic art.
• 52:00
  I mean, it's just there's such an overlap there.
• 52:03
  Anyhow, I have a particular set, two sets of of staves in the
• 52:12
  shape of acorns, and to me these these are the seeds of Igdrasil.
• 52:18
  So and just for some clarification my go to in
• 52:26
  divinity is first the tree, whatever gods happened to come
• 52:31
  along for the ride, fantastic. But first you go to the tree.
• 52:35
  It's kind of like I'm going right to the top you know, so
• 52:39
  but I always start my day under the the leaves of Igdrasil.
• 52:45
  And and so because I'm, I'm this dangerous, dangerous person, I
• 52:52
  have mixed my OEM and my my ruins and I read them together
• 52:58
  and it does that make for an interesting conversation like as
• 53:03
  an example here's here's one of the OEM staves and let's see
• 53:12
  find a room here I'm just oh oh what's happening in real life.
• 53:21
  Here we go. So, so real quick, like for
• 53:23
  people that are listening to this podcast, what what Saga is
• 53:27
  doing right now is she's got a bag that contains Runes, Elder
• 53:31
  Futhark Runes and also Celtic Ohm.
• 53:34
  Stabs is there. This is the Nordic rune A was or
• 53:41
  I was. It's phonetically EI or IE Is it
• 53:46
  I before E or E? So it's it's the the exceptions.
• 53:52
  So it's not the it's not the it's not it's not the one that
• 53:56
  looks like an M, it's the one that looks like an an upward and
• 53:59
  a downward spike. Yes, yeah, to me this is.
• 54:03
  Yeah, that what I what I was told was that at least
• 54:06
  linguistically, is that it gives the ash phenom.
• 54:11
  So Aquas Aquas is the is the name of it.
• 54:14
  But yeah. It's for English speakers that's
• 54:18
  really unfamiliar. But yeah, yeah, it it's kind of
• 54:21
  like the EV and the, you know, some of the other.
• 54:26
  Full resource the EVs sound. And the the THS.
• 54:31
  And yeah, it's it's fascinating. I want to learn it all.
• 54:36
  I just want to learn it all. So we actually got to see, you
• 54:39
  know Saga here, who's you know a Geethya, A Voidva, a safe Kona
• 54:45
  of 30 plus years pulling Ohm. I said it right Ohm and Elder
• 54:51
  Futhark runes or the Ohm stabs in the elder Futhark rooms which
• 54:55
  she is so she pulled out the the, the Aquas and the I don't
• 55:01
  know what the Ohm stave was. I don't know them, so whatever.
• 55:05
  But yeah, I will. In a lot of my morning sessions,
• 55:08
  I will read them together and it's, you know, the the OEM is
• 55:14
  the Druidic tree alphabet. So very much like the the
• 55:19
  Futharks, each one of the staves stand for complex spiritual
• 55:25
  concepts and there is poetry to each one of these tree staves,
• 55:31
  as there is with the ruins. Another interesting parallel
• 55:35
  here. When I started out, I started
• 55:37
  out as a Kabbalist. You know, learning, learning,
• 55:41
  learning, learning. You know in Wicca you can't help
• 55:43
  but run into Kabbalism. So anyhow, in reading and
• 55:49
  learning initially about the Kabbalah, the the 10 Sephiroth
• 55:53
  and the Tree of Life and the Tarot, it was a really
• 56:00
  interesting parallel with the Ruins in that the 22 major
• 56:04
  Arcana of any Tarot deck is based on the Hebrew alphabet.
• 56:10
  And every one of the seagulls in the Hebrew alphabet also stand
• 56:15
  for spiritual concepts, as do the own, as do the Ruins.
• 56:19
  And you know, every one of these seagulls have beautiful,
• 56:22
  beautiful poetry attributed to them.
• 56:25
  And just like with the runes and the, you know, the different 9
• 56:30
  worlds you can travel through the limbs of the tree.
• 56:34
  The same with the Kabbalistic systems where you travel the
• 56:37
  different legs of their tree of life as well.
• 56:40
  And there too the the a lot of the letters or the signals will
• 56:44
  line up with the different worlds.
• 56:46
  So there's these wonderful, delicious correspondences that
• 56:50
  you can just, you know, get yeah.
• 56:53
  Well this this what what is on the banner behind me So for
• 56:57
  those watching right I have a a a a Vegas here banner behind me
• 57:05
  and I was getting I don't say always but I get a lot of people
• 57:08
  be like you know that's not that's not Norris that's not
• 57:11
  Viking. It's it's it's no well I mean
• 57:15
  but it can't like from the Goldebrook or the Goldebrook
• 57:18
  like Icelandic book of stabs. I mean it's.
• 57:20
  It all comes from. Yeah.
• 57:24
  Jewish mysticism, Right. It has its roots there, Yes.
• 57:28
  So wonder why? Yeah.
• 57:31
  Well, comes from. Things that's that that was
• 57:35
  there even before, you know you say culture's sharing and and
• 57:38
  all that. Yeah, so.
• 57:39
  And they do because, like, it's one of the most interesting
• 57:42
  things about my husband studies running side by side with my own
• 57:47
  'cause he's a, he's into Vedantic philosophies, which is,
• 57:52
  you know, one of the oldest continuous spiritual systems in
• 57:59
  the world. And so many of our languages and
• 58:05
  everything came from those original Sanskrit seeds, from
• 58:10
  their own tree. And just, you know, it's like
• 58:13
  even even looking at the languages, my husband's been
• 58:18
  learning Sanskrit. So kind of by just default, I
• 58:22
  pick up on it as well. And, you know, just plain
• 58:24
  looking at the cognates and the root words in the original
• 58:28
  Sanskrit that have still translated into the Indo
• 58:32
  European languages. What I was gonna say it's it's,
• 58:35
  it's it all goes back to those Indo European roots.
• 58:39
  Yes, exactly. Yeah.
• 58:42
  Yeah, it's just. One interest yeah it is it's it
• 58:47
  you it's it's a rabbit hole upon rabbit hole that you can just
• 58:51
  yeah there's no end to it it's it's it's so deep and or we can
• 58:56
  maybe use it the well, right. I mean once you descend the
• 58:58
  well, the well there is no bottom to it I think.
• 59:02
  I think it goes and goes until eternity.
• 59:05
  It's I think it's like one of those bottomless sources of of
• 59:10
  of knowledge, of wisdom. It's it's why why you think Odin
• 59:14
  was so willing to give an eye for a drink of that.
• 59:19
  You know because. Mimir as well.
• 59:21
  Yeah, a drink from Mimir as well.
• 59:23
  And you know it's it's which is up the roots of.
• 59:30
  That you mentioned earlier you spent so much time.
• 59:33
  Yeah. And it's it that makes that
• 59:36
  brings me to the thinking of of the norms right, that I had told
• 59:39
  you about. Yes, yes.
• 59:42
  And yeah, I'd like to. I'd like to bring that up
• 59:44
  because this is one of the rituals that I will do in the
• 59:47
  morning when I do go to read. Like I said before, I don't do
• 59:52
  Divination, but I do do a read on whatever questions I am
• 59:58
  pondering, whether whether it's something mundane or it's
• 1:00:01
  something spiritual or even you know, I I have a lot of health
• 1:00:06
  issues so often times my sessions will be on what does
• 1:00:10
  this body need to keep working. So anyhow, I I don't know if
• 1:00:21
  it's arrogance, but I often will see.
• 1:00:26
  God's goddesses, spirits and everything as my relatives.
• 1:00:33
  And that goes for the norms as well.
• 1:00:35
  They're my sisters. So a classic norm.
• 1:00:42
  Pardon. I was saying that tracks
• 1:00:44
  actually. I mean if you not, not not to,
• 1:00:46
  not to take you away from what you're about to say, but just
• 1:00:49
  realizing that when we hear about the norms or the N.O.R.E
• 1:00:53
  near, I mean traditionally I think every, every family has
• 1:00:57
  the their own N.O.R.E near, right.
• 1:00:59
  So their own sort of ancestors. Ancestors, yeah.
• 1:01:03
  So yeah, they're they're like the D seer.
• 1:01:05
  Exactly. So.
• 1:01:07
  And anyhow, so much of this happens in my imagination.
• 1:01:12
  I I do have little seagulls and stuff that I'll use from time to
• 1:01:15
  time, because those those kind of tools really do help a a
• 1:01:22
  human connect to what they're doing.
• 1:01:25
  But often times I'll visualize these things in my head.
• 1:01:29
  Now I will visualize myself sitting at the base of the tree,
• 1:01:34
  and I invite the sisters to join me.
• 1:01:36
  And in my imaginings, there's a cauldron before me which
• 1:01:40
  represents the well of weird. So the sisters and I will sit
• 1:01:45
  around the well after, you know, I I address each one of them.
• 1:01:49
  I I usually will. I drink coffee with them in the
• 1:01:52
  morning. You know, coffee's my drink.
• 1:01:56
  So my gods, my goddesses, my norms, they drink coffee too.
• 1:02:01
  So I will, you know, address each one of them in turn, offer
• 1:02:05
  them coffee, and before we pull the runes, we dance.
• 1:02:13
  And, you know, this isn't an upright, you know, revivalist,
• 1:02:17
  you know, Pentecostal and a dance.
• 1:02:20
  It's like it's a seeded swaying where we are envisioning the
• 1:02:26
  mists of the well coming up and these mists we then spin into
• 1:02:34
  threads and these threads into potential and into fabric.
• 1:02:42
  And within these threads the runes also come along for the
• 1:02:46
  ride. So I will pull the runes that,
• 1:02:51
  you know, pop into my hands from my cute little room bag on
• 1:02:55
  whatever questions I have. And from there, you know read
• 1:03:00
  outs like say I say I get a gaboo and it was a gaboo that I
• 1:03:07
  got from URD. So something in my past was a
• 1:03:11
  very good case of reciprocity and left me in a sense of
• 1:03:15
  balance. Now say we've we're, I'm pulling
• 1:03:18
  a rune for Verande and we're gonna say it's Yara.
• 1:03:24
  So all of the balance from the past is now at a time of harvest
• 1:03:31
  in my present. Spin, spin, spin, pull a rune
• 1:03:35
  for school. And here we've got Bercano and
• 1:03:39
  the cycle starts again. So this would be an example of
• 1:03:44
  my, you know Noren's right, you know and we we usually it's
• 1:03:50
  something like this will take me 45 minutes to an hour because
• 1:03:54
  there's a lot more than just what I've verbalized here
• 1:03:58
  because it's a very it's a very kinetic practice for me, which
• 1:04:03
  in effect is part of my physical therapy dual purposes.
• 1:04:08
  You know, I'm I'm very young. It's all part of your medicine,
• 1:04:11
  I think, right? Yes, it's part of my medicine.
• 1:04:13
  And another right that I've I've been developing is called
• 1:04:20
  Dancing the wheels. This is.
• 1:04:23
  I gotta get some. Hang on, just one second.
• 1:04:26
  Yeah. Now, this is all very exciting
• 1:04:28
  and I I, I feel privileged enough to, you know, myself be
• 1:04:32
  here talking with you. But I also feel it's a privilege
• 1:04:35
  for a lot of folks that watch this and get to see it, but also
• 1:04:39
  listen to it. And so as a reminder, for those
• 1:04:42
  that are listening, if you want to watch what's going on,
• 1:04:44
  especially for episodes like this, become a patron on Patreon
• 1:04:47
  to to get that access. So thank you again, Saga, for
• 1:04:53
  gracing us with this opportunity.
• 1:04:54
  It's very. Awesome.
• 1:04:55
  You're very welcome. I I am standing on the shoulders
• 1:05:01
  of really, really driven pioneers because so much of the
• 1:05:09
  things I'm learning, not only is it experiential, but I had to
• 1:05:14
  read some of the people that came before me.
• 1:05:18
  So a shout out to even the controversial people because
• 1:05:24
  everything's worth reading. So you know, a shout out to.
• 1:05:29
  You're not the only one that said that I didn't mean.
• 1:05:30
  I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're not the only one that
• 1:05:32
  said that 'cause you know, you say, wisdom comes in many places
• 1:05:35
  from. Yeah, it's like I I did a rune
• 1:05:38
  presentation a couple weeks ago and you know I presented some
• 1:05:45
  well known authors in the field, some independent authors that
• 1:05:50
  are up and coming in in this field.
• 1:05:53
  And it was kind of like the good, the bad and the ugly of of
• 1:05:56
  authors. And I I ended up prefacing.
• 1:05:59
  It is like even read the bad ones because how are you going
• 1:06:03
  to know what's good until you've come across some utter crap?
• 1:06:08
  You know you and and even within the utter crap, a lot of times
• 1:06:14
  those are stepping stones to better knowledge.
• 1:06:20
  True. There's there's a certain book
• 1:06:22
  that came out in the in the 80s that is was an example of that
• 1:06:28
  that is much reviled within our community.
• 1:06:31
  But I know the one you're talking about, yes.
• 1:06:34
  It was a stepping stone. It was one of my first books and
• 1:06:38
  it's even reading it. It's like this doesn't feel
• 1:06:42
  right, but it got me searching for more.
• 1:06:46
  Yeah. Anyhow, I want to talk about my
• 1:06:50
  wheel right now because I I deal with a lot of physical issues,
• 1:06:56
  one of which is multiple sclerosis.
• 1:06:59
  Serious buzz kill. It's it's not a fun ride, but I
• 1:07:07
  am trying to work on ways to heal myself not only from
• 1:07:12
  physical things but also emotional things, and then share
• 1:07:16
  these tools with other people that are struggling.
• 1:07:18
  Because, you know, as humans we all have a spectrum of things we
• 1:07:23
  have to deal with, and I am a Reiki master, but my Reiki is
• 1:07:33
  now perverted by being Norse, which it's like I can't call
• 1:07:41
  myself a Reiki master anymore because I no longer do what
• 1:07:46
  would be considered Reiki. I guess the closest thing.
• 1:07:50
  Go ahead. No, I'm just saying that's
• 1:07:52
  interesting that so that the traditional methods of Reiki
• 1:07:56
  don't apply because of the Norse influences I guess or.
• 1:08:00
  Well, not that. Not only that, but I have in my
• 1:08:06
  own practices. It is evolved into something
• 1:08:10
  different, not something less, not something more, but
• 1:08:13
  something different but equal. Let me let me clarify this.
• 1:08:19
  OK. Within Reiki system there are
• 1:08:22
  like 7 main chakras and each of these energy centers supposedly
• 1:08:30
  controls different parts of your body or your psyche.
• 1:08:34
  Very much like the the nine parts of the Nordic soul, where
• 1:08:39
  you know different aspects of our Nordic soul complex and even
• 1:08:44
  the world's within our cosmology affect different psychological
• 1:08:50
  and physical aspects of our being.
• 1:08:54
  So in in not in rooting in Reiki system you have chakras.
• 1:09:01
  In a Nordic system we have wheels spelled in the
• 1:09:07
  Anglo-Saxon way of HWEOL wheel. Anyhow, same thing.
• 1:09:16
  Basically these energy centers are up and down your body.
• 1:09:23
  Now in my particular system it's I'm going to show a kind of a.
• 1:09:29
  This is one of my illustrations, and if you see on this body the
• 1:09:34
  circles. Yeah.
• 1:09:36
  Those would be those would be like the energy centers in a
• 1:09:40
  human body. OK, I got just one minute.
• 1:09:52
  Anyhow, the the, the basic one that I'm going to share is one I
• 1:09:57
  call clearing the wheels. Where each one of these energy
• 1:10:01
  centers, there's one like a root.
• 1:10:03
  There's one at what I call the core of our being, the heart of
• 1:10:06
  our being, the expression of our being, which is like all of our
• 1:10:10
  bodily senses and the mind of our being.
• 1:10:14
  So these were. All the thought processes
• 1:10:16
  happened, the root of our being. Just like in the chakras, these
• 1:10:19
  are our primal centers, the core of our being.
• 1:10:23
  This is. Our strength.
• 1:10:24
  This is the gut instincts. The harder we're being would be
• 1:10:28
  our emotional range. The the voice of our being is
• 1:10:32
  our senses. Our hearing, our touch, our
• 1:10:34
  taste, our smell. And here's where we process it
• 1:10:36
  all in the mind, dancing the wheels down the entire center of
• 1:10:42
  my being. I see it as the I can't
• 1:10:47
  pronounce it the way you did. I was rude.
• 1:10:50
  It was. Oh, the Aquas, yeah.
• 1:10:54
  Yeah, I see the body as being this, this is our, yes, the the,
• 1:11:01
  the aquas is our spine like the Yew Tree, it bends without
• 1:11:07
  breaking. So this is our entire spine that
• 1:11:10
  bends without breaking. And along our spine are these
• 1:11:14
  energy centers that we can have symbolize these different
• 1:11:19
  aspects of ourself. So in dancing the wheels, my
• 1:11:24
  very first thing is I will, you know, move through each one of
• 1:11:29
  these to music, to basically cleanse, clear, make ready for
• 1:11:36
  learning stuff. And then once I have gone
• 1:11:39
  through like a cleansing or clearing of these, these energy
• 1:11:43
  centers, I will pull runes. It's like, what does this
• 1:11:48
  session session section need? What do I need to know here?
• 1:11:51
  What do I need to know here? And I will do that all the way
• 1:11:55
  up these energy centers to actually make a bind rune of
• 1:12:02
  correspondences. It's like, these are the things
• 1:12:04
  I need to learn about what I'm going through on this day.
• 1:12:09
  Or if I'm doing a distance healing for somebody, they give
• 1:12:13
  me their issues and I will go through each one of those wheels
• 1:12:17
  and say, what's the problem here?
• 1:12:19
  How do we fix it? What's the problem here?
• 1:12:22
  How do we fix that? So I will use the runes in each
• 1:12:26
  one of these wheels as a modality for learning how to
• 1:12:32
  heal. Wow.
• 1:12:35
  So and it's, it's a system I'm developing to expand in all
• 1:12:41
  kinds of different directions of how to specifically heal this or
• 1:12:48
  that, how to deal with this kind of ancestral trauma, yeah.
• 1:12:55
  So this could this, this, this system that you're.
• 1:12:58
  How long have you been working on developing this?
• 1:13:00
  About two years. About two years, yeah.
• 1:13:04
  And do you see it becoming something that can be leveraged
• 1:13:08
  by anyone if they learn it correctly?
• 1:13:11
  Yeah, that's that is the plan. The ultimate goal is to create
• 1:13:17
  something that I call a casting cabinet.
• 1:13:23
  OK, Rune board. Now let's see.
• 1:13:27
  Here we go. This is my Rune board.
• 1:13:30
  OK, OK, Now if invasionals. Just for just for the folks that
• 1:13:34
  are listening to it, it's a, it's a it's a round disc.
• 1:13:36
  It's got a world tree like the Igdra seal I'm assuming is like
• 1:13:39
  in the center there. And then you've got your elder
• 1:13:42
  food like rooms going around the perimeter.
• 1:13:44
  Of it, yeah. And I this is something that I I
• 1:13:46
  made in like 2001 but I as I developed this further it is
• 1:13:52
  going to end up being like a 12 by 12 two sided box that opens
• 1:13:57
  up like a cabinet. OK.
• 1:14:00
  Where there will be Igdozil on one side and the three wells you
• 1:14:06
  know Rigamel's Mimir's. You know the the the three wells
• 1:14:11
  will be on the other side. Within it will be instructions
• 1:14:16
  for how to do a clearing of the wheels, how to dance with the
• 1:14:21
  norms, how to address God, how to travel different worlds.
• 1:14:28
  You know, it's it's, yeah, it's to me very exciting because I've
• 1:14:34
  been developing this for a couple years and during a lot of
• 1:14:37
  my morning sessions, the ideas are just pouring through.
• 1:14:42
  It's like, OK, this piece fits here, fits here, fits here.
• 1:14:46
  So And it'll be a a kind of system that people can adapt to
• 1:14:51
  their own needs. Because I don't want something
• 1:14:54
  to be static, like the written word.
• 1:14:57
  I want it to evolve with people, and I'm hoping that people will
• 1:15:02
  end up having the kind of confidence to trust their own
• 1:15:06
  instincts in the development of their own practices.
• 1:15:11
  See, I would love to get you and and one of my tribesmen, His
• 1:15:15
  name is Patrick and he has been developed.
• 1:15:18
  He's he developed a system that is not like anything I've ever
• 1:15:22
  seen before and he refers to it as agromancy Agro.
• 1:15:27
  Agro is the the obviously you know agricultural the the it's
• 1:15:31
  it's very nature based but it's it's all like Mandalic, like
• 1:15:35
  it's a system of glyphs glyphs and things that that when he has
• 1:15:41
  several decks of cards. That he worked.
• 1:15:43
  Up of Yeah, very, very, very much like that.
• 1:15:46
  And so when various cards get drawn right there's there's what
• 1:15:52
  what what ends up happening is an Agromanci reading takes a
• 1:15:56
  long time. Like it's not like the three
• 1:15:59
  card spread like he has a whole chart a whole system everything.
• 1:16:03
  But his hope is and and he's he's he started this like 20
• 1:16:08
  plus years ago in high school and it just recently became
• 1:16:12
  something that he shared publicly at one of our
• 1:16:17
  neighboring Kindred's like Raven Moon Hearth is a is a nearby
• 1:16:20
  heathen Kindred and they whole host public events every year
• 1:16:24
  and a couple of years ago he did a did like a an hour long kind
• 1:16:30
  of breakdown of agromancy and and shared it publicly up to
• 1:16:34
  that point it was only something that existed in his headspace
• 1:16:40
  with his friends some other close people.
• 1:16:42
  Right. But it's something to like what
• 1:16:44
  your reason why I was like I would love for you guys to talk
• 1:16:47
  because you are developing something that is kind of unique
• 1:16:51
  in the same way that he developed something because what
• 1:16:53
  his hope is to that somebody can learn the system learn his
• 1:16:58
  system but not stick to his like yes there's there's methodology
• 1:17:02
  behind it there there's a there's there's a system in
• 1:17:05
  place and there's methodology to it but to allow it to kind of
• 1:17:09
  become something of themself. Right.
• 1:17:11
  And and and and bend it to to to fit for them.
• 1:17:14
  So it doesn't like you say not become something that's static
• 1:17:17
  but something very kinetic very living.
• 1:17:19
  You know what I mean? Like it's a it's a living thing
• 1:17:22
  and and is unique to the person that that that works it.
• 1:17:26
  I think you guys would probably really enjoy talking to one
• 1:17:29
  another about your system, his system and and hearing y'all
• 1:17:33
  chat. With him, that'd be fun.
• 1:17:35
  Yeah, we might try to figure something out.
• 1:17:36
  He's he's in the midst of or he will be soon welcoming his first
• 1:17:42
  daughter into the world. So he's got that life, Yeah.
• 1:17:47
  Yeah, it's exciting. But it's a new thing, so he's
• 1:17:49
  got that to keep him busy. But it's interesting, You know,
• 1:17:53
  I I love what you're what you're sharing and I hope that it comes
• 1:17:56
  to fruition and that people can find a way to learn what they
• 1:18:00
  can learn, you know, from you or however it's going to be
• 1:18:03
  presented and use it for their benefit, you know so.
• 1:18:07
  Too. I I heard something that you
• 1:18:10
  were when you were talking that that kind of pricked my ear a
• 1:18:13
  little bit. You said something about bind
• 1:18:15
  runes and how the process throughout the process you craft
• 1:18:22
  the BIND rune. And interestingly enough I had
• 1:18:24
  somebody who had on on another one of my videos had had posted
• 1:18:31
  a comment. I'm just going to pop it up on
• 1:18:33
  screen. So for those that are watching,
• 1:18:34
  they can see what we're talking about here.
• 1:18:36
  But I'm just going to read it out loud.
• 1:18:39
  They they were basically saying, hey, I don't know if you do
• 1:18:41
  already, but could you make a little video about how you
• 1:18:45
  personally make buying runes? I have so many questions.
• 1:18:49
  I overthink the process a lot. Maybe if you haven't already you
• 1:18:54
  could offer a quick rundown of the runes as well and I'm and
• 1:18:59
  then they're asking because they trust my knowledge which is
• 1:19:03
  flattering. But there are so many resources
• 1:19:08
  you know out there talking about all things Norris related.
• 1:19:11
  But I I find contradictions come up also and then they go on.
• 1:19:17
  So, So what was interesting, you know, when you were talking saga
• 1:19:20
  about the the creation of a bind room?
• 1:19:23
  First of all. To answer this person's question
• 1:19:26
  it there is no quick rundown I don't think on this this I
• 1:19:30
  wouldn't I wouldn't trust sources online.
• 1:19:33
  You know a lot of people I think get this idea of oh I can make a
• 1:19:37
  bind for good luck or for good fortune or for love or for this.
• 1:19:40
  It's like that's that's that's not how this works.
• 1:19:43
  That's. Not how the yeah, for me that's
• 1:19:46
  that's a that's in the same kind of neighborhood as charlatans
• 1:19:52
  and divination. Yeah, you know, just Googling.
• 1:19:56
  What's the Nordic symbol for you know?
• 1:19:58
  Yeah, and it's that's gonna be, yeah, it's gonna be very
• 1:20:01
  changeable, 'cause, you know, like the signal for the entire
• 1:20:06
  weird's web that contains all the ruins.
• 1:20:09
  Yeah, that web of weird grid looking type of thing.
• 1:20:12
  Yeah, it's. A wonderful graphic.
• 1:20:14
  It's really, really wonderful. But it's like one person's BIND
• 1:20:19
  rune is going to be mean, something completely different
• 1:20:23
  to another rune master because so many of the signals overlap.
• 1:20:28
  It's a very, very personal thing and it's like my, you know, when
• 1:20:31
  I'm creating a bind rune for my daily session, it's for that day
• 1:20:39
  alone. It's it's not something that I
• 1:20:42
  share with anyone, because it's about a specific question or a
• 1:20:47
  specific topic that I'm encapsulating into this one
• 1:20:52
  signal as a matter of meditation, as a matter of what
• 1:20:58
  was going through my mind at that particular time.
• 1:21:01
  And then, you know, I take notes on it, of course.
• 1:21:03
  And if throughout the day there are more inspirations regarding
• 1:21:10
  any one of these signals, it's like I'll take some notes on it.
• 1:21:15
  But you know, when it comes to creating your own bind rooms,
• 1:21:19
  your intent, your intent is the most important thing.
• 1:21:23
  Say, say you want to do a healing for somebody.
• 1:21:30
  First get their permission, 'cause it's just good matters.
• 1:21:36
  And say you want you want them to have flow of good healing.
• 1:21:41
  So I've got Urus, which is very primal and strong rune, often
• 1:21:45
  associated with healing. In that I combine the rune
• 1:21:49
  Lagus, which disappears right into the Urus rune, unless I
• 1:21:54
  were to transpose it to make an extra leg off of Urus, in which
• 1:21:59
  case then I've got AT Wiz on there too.
• 1:22:01
  So then I've got a victory rune, so this person will be
• 1:22:05
  victorious in their healing. Of course, that's really
• 1:22:09
  amorphous. It's my personal opinion and my
• 1:22:12
  intent in that given moment. Any anybody else creating a bind
• 1:22:17
  room, their initial intent is the power they're putting into
• 1:22:22
  it, and it's gonna be something different to the next person.
• 1:22:27
  Yeah, I that that's good advice. What would you as as someone who
• 1:22:33
  has the years of experience working with the runes and being
• 1:22:37
  safe, Kona Navoga, what would be your reaction for towards
• 1:22:44
  someone who hadn't? Like they don't know what the
• 1:22:48
  runes mean, they haven't studied the meaning of the runes and
• 1:22:54
  they just go about starting to well, Tiwa's victory money fehu,
• 1:23:00
  right. Let me just let me just whip up
• 1:23:02
  something here real quick. Sort of lackadaisical, sort of
• 1:23:06
  haphazard. Going about it.
• 1:23:08
  What would What would be your? What would be your response or
• 1:23:10
  your reaction to someone who doesn't know the runes going
• 1:23:13
  into working with the runes? My advice on something like that
• 1:23:19
  is like if they've got a lackadaisical kind of attitude,
• 1:23:23
  their intent isn't there to start with, so those runes
• 1:23:28
  themselves aren't going to have much more than superficial
• 1:23:32
  meaning. So, you know, once that person
• 1:23:36
  learns more, they'll go through a period of, you know, it's
• 1:23:41
  almost like going through the different stages of grief or
• 1:23:44
  anger or any of the different developmental stages.
• 1:23:48
  You know, first you've got, you know, the lackadaisical, I don't
• 1:23:51
  know a whole lot about this, but this means this and this means
• 1:23:54
  this and this means this on a very superficial level.
• 1:23:57
  And then all of a sudden you learn more and it's like, Oh my
• 1:24:00
  God, but I just do 'cause now you're understanding.
• 1:24:05
  It's like, Oh my God, now I'm responsible for this, this,
• 1:24:08
  this, this and this. And then you evolve and learn
• 1:24:11
  even more. It's like, OK, OK, OK, I am a
• 1:24:13
  human being and I am learning. And it's like, I won't do it
• 1:24:18
  this way, this way again, or it's like, let's try it this
• 1:24:22
  way. Let's see if we can mitigate
• 1:24:25
  this as we learn, as we evolve and give ourselves the latitude
• 1:24:30
  for that learning. And then you become stronger in
• 1:24:33
  your practices and you know beforehand, Gee, that's not a
• 1:24:36
  good idea. OK, I will try this, but with
• 1:24:41
  this kind of caution, oh, it needs a little of this kind of
• 1:24:44
  runic something to give it this kind of power.
• 1:24:48
  So now you're you are deliberately directing instead
• 1:24:52
  of going, I don't know what the hell I'm doing now.
• 1:24:56
  There's a little bit of deliberate direction as you
• 1:24:59
  evolve through your practice. Yeah, that's good.
• 1:25:05
  I pretty much, I mean, I pretty much agree with that, especially
• 1:25:09
  with deliberate effort. I also have an.
• 1:25:14
  I look at one of the one of my one of my big things that I
• 1:25:17
  always reflect on with when it comes to anything with the runes
• 1:25:21
  is that infamous line in in the saga of IGL Scala Grimson, where
• 1:25:27
  he says, you know, you ought not to carve runes unless you know
• 1:25:31
  them. Right.
• 1:25:31
  Because what happened in a Gill's saga was somebody painted
• 1:25:36
  runes on on on whalebone that got this girl really sick.
• 1:25:40
  And here comes a gill having to undo this this charm, whether it
• 1:25:45
  was a stave, whether it was a spell written in runes, whatever
• 1:25:48
  it was had to undo the thing that was done because they were
• 1:25:51
  done wrong. And that can happen right.
• 1:25:55
  And I think with like with the with the respect of being
• 1:26:00
  lackadaisical or whatever, like know what you're doing.
• 1:26:02
  If you don't know, get somebody who does.
• 1:26:05
  I I I've been an advocate of that for a long time.
• 1:26:07
  Is is if you have any question about should I do this, should I
• 1:26:10
  do that, then you probably shouldn't talk to someone who
• 1:26:13
  goes get the expert involved. Go to the Victoria, go to the
• 1:26:18
  Volva, go to the safe Kona. Go to the whoever it is that is
• 1:26:21
  a trusted and vetted person that knows what it is that they're
• 1:26:27
  doing with these things because they do have power.
• 1:26:29
  There is power that is there that can be wielded or or woven
• 1:26:33
  I think you know and if you're if you're just, you know, it's
• 1:26:36
  kind of like if you don't know gun safety and you start wailing
• 1:26:40
  a gun around, you're going to fire a round off and it's going
• 1:26:42
  to hit somebody or something do damage, right.
• 1:26:45
  I mean you got to have respect for the tool that you're that
• 1:26:48
  you're wielding here and and there is maybe nothing quite so
• 1:26:51
  violent as to like a gun, but I'm just using that as like a
• 1:26:54
  very visceral example of the possible damage that could cause
• 1:26:58
  if you're if you're not careful. Yeah, it's one of those cases
• 1:27:01
  where there's not an excuse for ignorance, Yes, but latitudes,
• 1:27:07
  if they aren't knowing as they go into it, they they, yeah, you
• 1:27:13
  know, they get, they get smack down as they go on and then go
• 1:27:18
  after through the process of their own learning.
• 1:27:21
  And I think part of the learning does mean messing up.
• 1:27:25
  You're gonna mess up. There's gonna be mistakes along
• 1:27:27
  the way, you know? That's part of the learning
• 1:27:30
  process. It's tough love.
• 1:27:31
  It's tough learning. It's, you know, the with a lot
• 1:27:35
  of the people that I mentor, they're always so it's almost
• 1:27:40
  paralyzed to experiment because they're so afraid of doing
• 1:27:44
  something wrong. It's like, how will you learn if
• 1:27:48
  you don't make mistakes? How do you know what's good?
• 1:27:51
  How it's like? How do you know what authors are
• 1:27:54
  other crap and which ones are good unless you read them all
• 1:27:58
  so? Why do we fall?
• 1:28:01
  So we can learn to pick ourselves up exactly.
• 1:28:04
  Yeah go through the ordeals go through those and and we talked
• 1:28:08
  a little bit about that earlier and I think we're we're getting
• 1:28:11
  to a point now for the both of our sakes.
• 1:28:12
  It's it's probably good to work towards the close of the
• 1:28:16
  episode. But as we as we talked earlier
• 1:28:18
  about ordeal right you don't reach the places like Saga here
• 1:28:25
  has reached without having gone through ordeal right This she
• 1:28:29
  doesn't carry the title of Vorva Saif Kona Githya because she
• 1:28:35
  picked the book up overnight and boom there you are.
• 1:28:38
  No, this is this is again something that was you know
• 1:28:43
  imparted to you and and blessed upon you through action, through
• 1:28:46
  deed, through ordeal, through having gone through the tough
• 1:28:50
  times. You know the trial and error,
• 1:28:53
  you know the blood, the sweat and tears I think is what you
• 1:28:55
  said earlier right. Those are literal things.
• 1:28:57
  Those are I have bled for the runes.
• 1:29:00
  I have cried over the runes. I have hurt in spiritual,
• 1:29:05
  physical, different ways over the over various parts of my
• 1:29:10
  practice and still do. I mean it's it's.
• 1:29:13
  It's it's the Spiral Dance. Yeah.
• 1:29:16
  The Spiral Dance, and it is representative of each one of
• 1:29:22
  our ordeals. On the tree.
• 1:29:24
  We go through the same ordeal of hanging from that tree to learn
• 1:29:31
  knowledge. And in the madness of discovery,
• 1:29:37
  we are led to the words and we are led to the deeds, and we're
• 1:29:40
  led to the learning. And then it starts.
• 1:29:45
  That's deep. The madness of discovery, yeah.
• 1:29:53
  Yeah, it's like it's I I sometimes do the very, very
• 1:29:58
  horribly irreverent thing of rewriting the Runetol as a
• 1:30:04
  personal encounter. You know, whether it's mine or
• 1:30:08
  Odin's or whoever is struggling that is on this quest for divine
• 1:30:14
  knowledge. And it's out there.
• 1:30:17
  But the ruins have always existed.
• 1:30:19
  It's like humanity itself, consciousness itself.
• 1:30:23
  It is always existed. And we just have to remember.
• 1:30:29
  We have to reach out and grab the ruins and then fall back
• 1:30:33
  screaming with that madness of knowledge.
• 1:30:35
  Yeah. It's like it's a lifelong.
• 1:30:39
  It's a lifelong thing. It is.
• 1:30:41
  And it's delicious. And it's, yeah, it's heady and
• 1:30:44
  it's visceral and it's blood, sweat and tears, man.
• 1:30:50
  It's that good medicine. It's the good, good medicine.
• 1:30:52
  It's the good, good medicine, yeah.
• 1:30:57
  Saga This has been absolutely eye opening and really enjoyable
• 1:31:01
  for me me. Too.
• 1:31:03
  Thank you. Thank.
• 1:31:03
  You so much for for coming here. When I stop the recording you
• 1:31:06
  and I will just touch base real quick offline, so I can give you
• 1:31:09
  expectations of what's to come after this, but very good.
• 1:31:13
  Is there anything as we wrap up, is there anything or anywhere
• 1:31:18
  that you want to tell people that they can go to either
• 1:31:22
  support you or what you do or or find your work or anything like
• 1:31:25
  that that's accessible to the public?
• 1:31:28
  I I do have a Facebook page for for my community.
• 1:31:32
  It's called the Northern Lights Collective and it's it is a
• 1:31:37
  universalist group of like minded seekers that we're doing
• 1:31:43
  what we can to be the change we want to see in the world.
• 1:31:46
  My my own work, my my husband and I are both artists.
• 1:31:52
  Like mentioned earlier I'm I'm primarily an illustrator and
• 1:31:57
  portrait artist. My my body of work also includes
• 1:32:01
  fiber arts, but that's to the side right now.
• 1:32:04
  But I can be found at Starkraven Studios Facebook page and there
• 1:32:10
  there are albums and albums of our work that you know, we're
• 1:32:14
  we're happy to share. And I, I, I have to plug one of
• 1:32:18
  my very best friends in the whole wide world.
• 1:32:20
  You you had him on your program probably a year and a half to
• 1:32:25
  two years ago. My my good friend, Kurt.
• 1:32:28
  Kurt Hoogstrat. Yes, Kurt Hoogstrat.
• 1:32:30
  Yes, I have a couple of his books.
• 1:32:32
  Yes, ta da. Yeah, the Viki musings, I think
• 1:32:36
  one of them. And yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:38
  Bitki Musings and Druid Musings are compiled into this book and
• 1:32:44
  it is not only a plug for Kurt, but also for me because I did
• 1:32:51
  the layouts and the illustrations for the book.
• 1:32:54
  Beautiful. That's a great collaboration
• 1:32:56
  right there. Yeah.
• 1:32:57
  Yeah, it's it was a wonderful, wonderful collaboration and his
• 1:33:01
  book is, you know, very much like this talk, how we practice,
• 1:33:07
  how he practices on a day-to-day level with both his druid work
• 1:33:13
  his his esoteric work across the board.
• 1:33:16
  So yeah, that's that's a little personal plug.
• 1:33:20
  A shout out to another one of my communities Awake in the North.
• 1:33:26
  I'm I'm very honored to be Agaethia for for Awake in the
• 1:33:30
  North. They're a really good bunch of
• 1:33:34
  people that have an incredibly expansive university for for
• 1:33:40
  people to learn from the Awake in the north University.
• 1:33:42
  So a shout out to them and all the wonderful volunteers that
• 1:33:48
  that run that place that's become a home for a lot of
• 1:33:52
  seekers. I I also, I want to give a shout
• 1:33:56
  out to you and the people of your generation.
• 1:34:00
  I just turned 60 and I'm watching your generation do
• 1:34:06
  incredible, incredible things with the tools you have at at
• 1:34:10
  hand. I am so inspired by all of the
• 1:34:15
  things I'm seeing the young people do with the Kindreds that
• 1:34:18
  I'm seeing popping up all over the place, that are teaching
• 1:34:22
  people to explore their spirituality, to give themselves
• 1:34:27
  their own strengths and healing. And it's wonderful, wonderful to
• 1:34:32
  see the next generations, and even now second and third
• 1:34:36
  generation Heathens walking the walk, learning the lore and be
• 1:34:41
  making their own worlds a better place.
• 1:34:43
  So thank you young people. Thank you all of you, for
• 1:34:50
  keeping the lore alive. You're keeping the lore alive.
• 1:34:54
  Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 1:34:57
  And on that note, I do just want to say, you know, we we are, we
• 1:35:00
  are the embers of our ancestral fires, you know what I mean?
• 1:35:05
  Like the traditions of our ancestors, these aren't dead
• 1:35:08
  ashes, they are glowing embers and we preserve.
• 1:35:12
  I hope that you know with with the things that you're talking
• 1:35:15
  about that that we're seeing more of, that earnest, the
• 1:35:18
  desire to rekindle those embers, right.
• 1:35:21
  Preserve the fire, not worship the ashes.
• 1:35:24
  Preserve the fire. And make preserve the fires.
• 1:35:26
  You know, and I I see it too. And I'm glad that it's being
• 1:35:31
  seen and it's being done and hailed the doers, because that's
• 1:35:35
  where the magic happens. It's boots on the ground.
• 1:35:37
  It's doing the things that's. That's what he thinks, Walking
• 1:35:40
  the walk and yeah, seeing it happening in real time and the
• 1:35:45
  growth just in the last 35 to 40 years within this path, it's
• 1:35:52
  it's fantastic, so. I can only imagine seeing where
• 1:35:56
  it was when you started to where it's where you know what it's
• 1:35:59
  become and where it's arrived. I mean, that's got to be such an
• 1:36:02
  enriching feeling. It really is, yeah.
• 1:36:06
  See it progress like that. Yeah, it it really is.
• 1:36:09
  And you know, watching there's a couple of of people in their mid
• 1:36:15
  30s, you know, the ages of my kids that are brilliant writers
• 1:36:21
  and they are lore writers of our future.
• 1:36:25
  There are lore writers of right now that.
• 1:36:29
  Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's exciting.
• 1:36:33
  So again, thank you. It was.
• 1:36:35
  This was a great chat. I had a wonderful time and you
• 1:36:38
  guys, everything that Saga's already mentioned the The
• 1:36:42
  Northern Lights Collective, Awaken the North.
• 1:36:44
  Everything that she's mentioned is going to be LinkedIn, the
• 1:36:48
  show notes of this podcast or down in the description area of
• 1:36:50
  this video for you folks on Patreon.
• 1:36:52
  So do be sure to check all those things out, show your love and
• 1:36:55
  support for what Saga does in any way that you can.
• 1:37:01
  And yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
• 1:37:03
  And thank you again, Saga for being here.
• 1:37:05
  Thank you all for for listening and watching to to this week's
• 1:37:09
  episode. If you did like it, as I
• 1:37:10
  mentioned early at the beginning of the podcast, share it around,
• 1:37:14
  give it an up vote, do whatever. The thing is that the platform
• 1:37:17
  that you're catching this on, you know, gives you an
• 1:37:21
  opportunity to support in any way.
• 1:37:23
  And we greatly appreciate all of your constant and ongoing
• 1:37:26
  support and what we do in this fashion.
• 1:37:28
  So thank you again, Saga. Thank you all very much for
• 1:37:30
  being here and watching or listening until we all talk to
• 1:37:34
  each other again. May the gods continue to notice
• 1:37:37
  you. May your ancestors smile upon
• 1:37:39
  you. We'll see you in the next one.