S. Kelley Harrell's Blog: Intentional Insights - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism, page 76
August 9, 2015
The Weekly Rune – Laguz
Into the Known, this week.
Thurisaz remains the half-month rune until 13 August, at which point Ansuz moves to the fore. Read right to left is Thurisaz above, Ansuz below, then Laguz.
Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. The full runecast is available through Patreon. The full cast gives more insight into the half-month rune’s influence, and for $5 a month, receive The Weekly Rune before everyone else. Find my more of my runic artwork on Etsy.
With the introduction of a new self to the world, Laguz eases us into a new manner of expression. I’ve written of the concepts of Innangarðr and Útgarðr regarding the nine worlds of the Old Norse cosmology, indicating the Known versus the Unknown. Some may call this the hell we know, versus the hell we don’t know. It truly is a matter of perception.
This week we contend with order and chaos, while Laguz brings an element of calm to the shift. Related to ice, as well, Laguz indicates the eleven rivers (Hvergelmir) that flow from the icy world of Niflheimr. These rivers are the source of life as we know it. They created the elemental formula that resulted in Audhumla and Ymir, the progenitors of our galaxy (in my estimation). Such is the creative force that’s available at this time, and we get to work with it on our terms.
Laguz generally indicates a time that the elements align in support of us, which of course means that we must recognize that support for what it is, and be ready to make use of it. We can have all the aid in the world, though if we don’t allow it, don’t do the work with it, we may as well be flailing against the current.
This week, stay focused on the resources that are available. There is method in the madness, and with that little reminder, who we are inside can be more congruent with what we’re up against, outside.
The post The Weekly Rune – Laguz appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Intentional Insights.
August 7, 2015
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
I’m grateful for what I hope will be a smooth recovery from surgery.
I’m grateful for the smiles of my children.
I’m thankful for staying grounded during a crazy time.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!
This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Katie. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.
The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts - Intentional Insights.
August 3, 2015
The Weekly Rune – Raidho
First week with the new self.
Thurisaz remains the half-month rune until 13 August. Read right to left is Thurisaz, then Raidho.
Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. The full runecast is available through Patreon. The full cast gives more insight into the half-month rune’s influence, and for $5 a month, receive The Weekly Rune before everyone else. Find my more of my runic artwork on Etsy.
With this new self in play, Raidho challenges how we tap back into life. Anyone who’s ever changed knows it isn’t how the change impacts personal life that is the greatest factor. Rather, it’s how others in closest circles respond to that change that tells the tale.
This is a test of the Universal “Are You Sure You’re Really Secure With This System.” The rumblings of your unconscious in voluntary cooperation with the cultural, intellectual, and wyrd authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of actual authenticity. In the event of an threatening challenge to your Divine Self, the Attention Signal you just intuited would have been followed by official feelings, thoughts, or emotions. This test serves the body-mind-spirit-feelings full sensory area. This concludes this test of the Are You Sure You’re Really Secure With This System.
Do you know the difference? If you don’t, you soon will.
Recall that Sleeping beauty pricked her finger on a spindle, which plunged her into deep sleep. The prince cut through thorns (thurisaz) to wake her.
Expect to do the same for yourself this week.
The post The Weekly Rune – Raidho appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 31, 2015
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
I’m grateful for a wonderful mountain trip and time with family.
I’m grateful for support.
I’m thankful for optimism.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!
This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Katie. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.
The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 30, 2015
Animist Child – Blessings for the Tooth Faerie
Álfheimr the gods gave to Freyr
In bygone days as tooth-payment.
The Poetic Edda. Grímnismál, stanza 5, Larrington translation.
There’s a saying in pagan culture, along the lines of, ‘When the first tooth is cut seek a High Priestess. When the first tooth is lost, seek a master scientist.’
The implication is that as children we’re full of wonder, naturally receptive to the animistic world around us, and we engage it passionately. In that stage, we need sage governance to explore imagination with abandon to glimpse our full potential. Later, when we’re older and confronted with the limitations of the five senses and the challenges of the formed experience, we need measurable teachings grounded in surviving and thriving.
Since having twins in 2009, I’ve stalked the notion of writing my take on animistic parenting. I’m still out to jury on that as a formal series, though I wanted to share this insight about the Old Norse tradition’s tooth-gift ritual, and how it’s still relatable in our modern lives.
On the path of seiðr, Old Norse shamanism, is the ritual of tooth-gift, which comes during the study of Álfheimr
, the land of light elves, or faeries as they came to be Anglicized. Mentions of Álfheimr and its inhabitants, álfar, are few. In the Prose Edda, Sturluson describes them as “more beautiful than the sun,” which imparts to the elves a certain godlike status, making it curious then, why their world was given to a boy king to rule when he cut his first tooth.
Freyr was Vanir, a group that developed early in the formation of the Old Norse nine-world cosmology, who came to live on the world Vanaheimr. They were nature lovers, besotted with the wild, primal life force of the unknown. To put them in a more general context, of the nine worlds only two are considered innangarðr, or ‘within the guard,’ or what is known. They are Ásgarðr and Miðgarðr–the lands of gods/goddesses and humans. The other seven are útgarðr, or ‘beyond the guard,’ what is unknown. Within that equation, Vanaheimr is the epitome of our wild Nature.
Freyr is also the twin brother of Freya, a balanced pairing which is often translated as polar aspects of the same being–masculine and feminine embodied as a whole. Worth noting about Freya, she was a völva, a shamaness, who taught seiðr to Oðin. She brought the wild to the Æsir when she became their pledge. She brought animism to the gods as a two-way street, through shamanism. Through the story of Freya we aren’t just experiencing connection with spirit guides, they are also experiencing engagement with us. Telling, that.
Why, then, is giving the land of the elves to a toddler significant? In Old Norse culture, it was traditional to give a gift at the cutting of the first tooth–the tooth-gift. There lingers no clear explanation for why that might be, though consider for a moment that all children are animists. We all come into life experiencing that everything is alive–our stuffed animals, invisible friends, our food. Through those same years we rely on our mother to feed us, to be the conduit in our consumption of the world around us. If we don’t consume, we die. That is the human formula. As babies, we are fed by someone else, in some cases literally through someone else. The burden of caring for our body and survival falls to our mother, as we leisurely familiarize ourselves with being souls in form. Also significant, as babies we are in the brainwave state of delta most of the time. Delta is considered the bridge to the collective unconscious. In the story of Freyr, at the stage that he would most be forming relationship to the world around him, he was given a magickal one to rule. He was given access to a world beyond the one we experience with five senses, to do with whatever he liked. He was given the freedom of his imagination to explore realms beyond which humanity can normally reach.
As we cut teeth, our relationship to consumerism changes. Most babies are about a year old when they get their first tooth. As with cutting teeth, the age of transition to solid food varies widely. When it occurs, it accompanies a deep shift in awareness. The body isn’t just here, it is part of who we are and the body must be fully honored in order to stay here well. With the advent of solid food, responsibility in sustaining it shifts away from the mother, and to a degree to the child. Along with this developmental change, our awareness grows, and we seat more fully into our bodies. This timeframe coincidences with a shift into predominantly theta brainwaves. Theta is the state of cognisant dreaming, meditation. It is the arena of ecstatic shamanic trance. As we move more into our bodies, our awareness must ground, as well. We attune less to the imagination, and more to the life happening around us. We have to if we want to stay alive.
Around five years old we lose our first baby teeth, and are firmly engaging initiation into the full experience of being human. We shift from a predominantly theta brainwave to beta, in which our minds are consumed with absorbing facts from the external. Just as the body craves more substantial food to remain healthy, in order to survive the realities of the earthly plane, our consciousness becomes more fixed on the five senses. We eat to survive; we observe to survive.
Losing teeth isn’t a terribly traumatic thing. It is, however, an intense business that can take a great span of discomfort to complete. We do this transition in body and consciousness at the same time, making it a pretty pivotal stride in independent life-sustaining success. The losing of first teeth indicates a point at which our minds are developing past that deep theta brainwave connection to All Things, and we have to begin working to sustain it. It’s not free anymore. No one is going to continue to feed us, or give us our own world to rule. We have to get back to Álfheimr by ourselves.
The transition of tooth-cutting then losing baby teeth to adult ones coincides with our deepest challenge as humans–to retain our animistic awareness while successfully navigating formed reality. It is life-long.
Tooth-gift or tooth-payment, is a source upon which we base the modern fancy of the Tooth Faerie. When our babies cut teeth, we honor their feet in both worlds–one in that of humanity, and one in that of the soul. From the day we’re born, we’re focused on sustaining our bodies, prolonging the time that we have here. In order to do that well, we must consume and make peace with the sacrifice of life that comes with consumption. We must be fully committed to being in the earthly realm. We assume that by virtue of birth we’ve already made that agreement. However, through the shifts of body and consciousness in our wee years, we make it again, aware that we’re choosing to be here. Such is the spiritual significance of losing teeth.
So the tooth fairy sustains as one of many touchstones, messengers from the spirit world, reminding us not only that we made that choice, but that we have support in making it again and again throughout life. We give the tooth to the fae, so that she can bless us with a reminder of otherly support, a reminder to make the time we have here better, and a shiny trinket under the pillow to invest in doing just that.
How do you sustain that connection when there are no more teeth to give? How do we hold both the wisdom of the High Priestess and the logic of the master scientist? How have you bettered the world with your tooth-gift?
—
[1] Sturluson, Snorri . The Prose Edda.
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July 27, 2015
The Weekly Rune – Gebo
Authority over self is assured, this week.
Uruz remains the half-month rune until 29 July, at which point Thurisaz moves to the fore. Read right to left is Uruz at the top, Thurisaz below, then Gebo.
Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. The full runecast is available through Patreon. The full cast gives more insight into the half-month rune’s influence, and for $5 a month, receive The Weekly Rune before everyone else. Find my more of my runic artwork on Etsy.
After weeks of low rumbling, subtle movement provokes big transformation. We’ve sat with Uruz incubating precisely the self we want to slip into for the last two weeks, with gentle Berkano urging us to truly embody that self before moving forward. This week there is definitely movement at deep levels with Thurisaz.
This week there is action, after several weeks of incubating that which should change. Gebo means “gift,” though more appropriately it expresses the exchange of gifts. Modern interpretations put the emphasis on the noun, the gift, rather than the traditional meaning, which was on process of giving, the exchange of balanced sacrifice.
Sacrifice gives modern runesters the heebs, though in Old Norse culture, it had a very different connotation. Sacrifice wasn’t extra. It wasn’t something thought of as a displacing or frightening force. It was an honor, and as such, an expectation. More than either of those, sacrifice was just plain life. We tend to look at sacrifice as a bringer of pain and suffering, which may be a reflection more on our idea of giving than anything else.
Gebo is one of two runes that everyone wants to come up in their casts. It’s light, generally optimistic, indicates green lights, and brings a sigh of relief. This week expect a magnificent exchange that results in the firm placement of the new self. What is most wonderful about this realization is the hard work has been done. Before us now is acceptance, and generating and sustaining the fortitude to live our truth out loud.
That’s easy, right?
The post The Weekly Rune – Gebo appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 24, 2015
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
I’m grateful for new scenery.
I’m grateful for answers to health issues, even if they’re not simple to apply.
I’m thankful for validation, even if it’s 14 years after-the-fact.
I’m grateful for support.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!
This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Katie. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.
The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 23, 2015
Life Betwixt – Prophecy, Everyday Life, and The Cradling (Part 2)
The prophecy of the bone is the upheaval of the mind. ~Kelley Harrell
In Part I of this Betwixt story, I shared my experience with the toll of intuitive life, and how prophecy truly manifests. For me, it manifests in symptoms of anxiety, panic, what feels like soul loss, and the aftermath of deep trauma. As someone who has experienced each of those states as a direct reaction to personal experience, feeling them for no apparent reason at all is sanity-testing.
The build-up of tension prior to my grandmother’s death this past spring left me spent. Experiencing her deathwalk firsthand was disorienting and distressing, even once I realized it for what it was, and facilitated its conclusion. Odd events still happened in the house for a few days–items not being where I’d just left them, muffled voices, electronics turning off and on. Those kinds of disturbances are not foreign to me, though I still don’t like them. With this transition I knew they were fleeting and would soon calm.
They did; however, within a few weeks started again. I knew it wasn’t related to my grandmother, which again stirred anxiety. If it wasn’t connected to her, then to whom? Exactly a-month-to-the-day later, my great aunt died. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, though she’d been a brilliant presence throughout my childhood. She truly was one of the most dynamic and independent women I’ve ever known, and I felt blessed to have known her.
I tended my grief over her death, though it didn’t sate. Simmering as a low-burning sadness, I was overwhelmed with feelings of nostalgia, realizations of moving ever more firmly into my family as an elder, and thoughts of what my own legacy would be.
These feelings didn’t abate, though they weren’t as severe as they had been in the spring. I thought perhaps the adrenal toll of prophecy just needed to balance, and I let the low rumblings roll as they may.
Again, one month to the day later, my great aunt on the other side of my family died. January, then March, April, and May, loved ones left, and I every one of them passed through me. By this point, I was fried. I didn’t attempt to monitor how I felt, when I felt what, or what triggered anything. I just kept it between the lines, and got through each day. Without question, I wasn’t as close to these loved ones as I’d been to those that long ago summer. The etheric experience leading up to the deaths of these recent loved ones was more intense, however, and I needed to understand why.
Upon asking my guides for insight into how to cope with this clearly prophetic awareness, they reminded me of one of the very first things I’d learned from them years before–that I am a midwife for those departing, that I feel and facilitate the deathwalk before the soul fully leaves the body, and that I’m better at that role now than I was at seventeen. My spirit teachers treated this like hallowed information, though I remained unsoothed.
I asked them if there’s a way to facilitate my role in that process without bringing my everyday life and sanity to the knees. They told me that the closer someone is in my bloodline or etheric connections, the more jarring the etheric impact of death is. And it goes both ways. I may not be all that close to the person, though that person may feel very close to me. The more dependent the person is on me to facilitate the deathwalk, the greater the impact it has on me. Any emotional overlaps I have in that dynamic only complicate the process further.
With that knowledge came deep confirmation. I knew when they felt absent, they were protecting me from deep emotional and psychological intrusion–a task for which I’ve been grateful many times. I understand my end of the deal is to actively protect my wellbeing, which is a hard position to hold in the midst of grief. Spirit Teachers aren’t in our lives to be givers of comfort. Their job isn’t to feel the weight of our lives. If they did, they wouldn’t be able to hold the space for us as securely as they do. Their focus is to motivates us to grow, and sometimes that feels like really vulnerable shit.
I held that information closely, then told them that I need concrete help during such times. I’m grateful for their protection from the outside, but I need it from the inside, too. They were silent for what seemed like ages, though the tone of our meeting changed, as if they finally realized the human component of what I had gone through.
As they processed my plea for help in this work, the tone of our exchange changed. One of my guides came forward–Angrboða–and she said, “‘The Cradling’ is what you do, swaddling them off to death. We hold them at bay, so they don’t take you over on their way out. We will cradle you, Kelley.”
I’ve said many times, I have tough-love guides. They don’t offer softness or sensitivity to the emotional side of human life. In that light, the sincerity of the sentiment touched me, and I believed her. My job is trust that offering, because The Cradling will happen again.
There are many masters and gurus who say if you’re doing your [fill-in-the-blank-empathic-ability] correctly, it shouldn’t take a toll on your personal life. I agree there’s truth to that assertion, though it’s radically incomplete. To really “do it right,” requires a sacrifice of life perspective–and possibly relationships– that few people are willing to make. In fact, it means releasing again and again into the shifted perspective that each prophecy brings into life, sustaining faith in spiritual allies, and walking the walk that is Betwixt.
For me, that continual release is trusting my own sanity. Hell of a job, that.
How does prophecy root into your life? What does it uproot in the process, and how do you sustain compassion for yourself and All Things through that upheaval? Who do you engage to help you in that process?
The post Life Betwixt – Prophecy, Everyday Life, and The Cradling (Part 2) appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 20, 2015
The Weekly Rune – Berkano
This week, behold the change and step into its wisdom.
Uruz remains the half-month rune until 29 July. Read right to left is Uruz then Berkano.
Following is a summary of The Weekly Rune. The full runecast is available through Patreon. The full cast gives more insight into the half-month rune’s influence, and as a patron or matron, you receive The Weekly Rune before everyone else. You can also find my more of my runic artwork on Etsy.
After two weeks of being frozen in place by Isa, we find a bit of movement with Berkano, sort of. In the traditional ordering of the Elder Futhark, Berkano comes after Tiwaz, a warrior rune that indicates victory after tragic loss. In fact, I’d actually call Tiwaz a battle rune rather than a warrior rune, because it speaks more about how to move on in the thick of survivor’s guilt than actual victory. How fitting that Berkano, the nurturer, the embodiment of caregiver feminine, comes immediately after.
What we bear with Uruz is an ill-fitting self. Isa made us sit with that discomfort until we could hardly stand it. The half-month stave has brought a primal awareness to the fore that can no longer be overlooked. It is a place in our lives in which we feel we haven’t been authentic, or capable of speaking our truth. Where the combination of Isa (stillness) and Uruz (unconscious rumbling) brought discomfort, Berkano can now bring healing to that sore spot. Where Isa held us against our wills to see the truth, Berkano gives us the fortitude to pause of our own volition and honor change.
This week we gain insight into some aspect of self that is no longer working. It likely served us well at some point, but we’re passed it now. The rumbling Uruz has brought over the last week can transmute into a powerful force to recreate the self. Berkano asks us to make sure we create not only the self we want, but to pause with intention and create the one that best serves our deepest needs.
The post The Weekly Rune – Berkano appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.
July 17, 2015
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
I’m grateful for a laid back solo parenting weekend.
I’m grateful for the safe return of Rob.
I’m thankful for starting another cool art project.
I’m happy for insight into the cause of longterm pain, and hoping for wonderful solutions.
I’m grateful for Tribe.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks? Who is grateful for you? I am!
This post is part of Lexa Cain’s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things, along with her co-hostesses L.G. Keltner and Katie. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment and collective awareness.
// ]]>
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