Trancework – Serendipities

Freyja’s Falcon Flight: The Grain Harvest

I was late this month in my journey to see Freyja, and so I am late getting this to all of ya’ll, but hopefully it’s helpful or resonates with some of you. If you’re used to doing journeys from a script, great! Otherwise feel free to have some one read it to you, or record yourself reading it. Edit the intro and expand the outro if you need to, but please leave the middle intact, and don’t share the recording without telling them where to find my original post!

I recommend lighting a devotional candle and/or making a small offering to Freyja (perhaps a libation) before you begin. Prepare yourself however you normally would, to do work at an altar. For my part, that usually means wearing one of my devotional hair ribbons and perhaps donning magical jewelry, and acquiring something to go over my head while I journey.

Falcon Flight: Whose Wisdom Will You Seek?

Begin in stillness, and quiet, and darkness. Find your center, and align yourself with earth and sky. As you stare at the darkness behind your eyes, feel and see as mist swirls up from the ground, obscuring everything around you. After a moment, it begins to part, leaving you standing in a flowery meadow.

When you arrive in the meadow, take a moment to observe around you, turning until you see a path. At the entrance to the path are two shrubs, and as you move on that direction, you see trees as well. Shrubs give way to trees and undergrowth on either side of the path, getting taller and denser as you move onward, until they join overhead into an arch, forming a tunnel of trees that slopes downward, getting denser and darker.

Eventually, you notice that the path has become flat, and then it begins to rise. Now the trees are thinning again, branches giving way to brightness, and as the trees again give way to shrubs, you see a gate in front of a wide plain and beyond it, the great world tree. If you have any guides or guardians you wish to accompany you, ones who can join you in flight, call to them now, before you step through the gate and make your way towards the tree.

As you approach the World Tree, circle around it clockwise, until you see an opening beneath one of the great roots. Duck under this root and enter the tunnel beneath. There is hard dirt packed beneath your feet, and the entire tunnel seems to have been hewn from that same clay-rich dirt and sandstone. Not as many feet come this way — the floor is still rough in places, so watch your step as you continue forward. There are torches set into sconces in the rough hewn walls, and their light looks like fire but you feel no heat as we continue past, and you smell no smoke or pitch.

The tunnel curves gently and then begins to rise in a gradual incline, ending in a doorway, two huge stones on either side and capped with a third. Touch one gently as you step out into the fresh air — these are worn by the elements and smooth to the touch. If you look back to the entrance, you will notice that on this side, the tunnel leads into what looks like a large burial mound, standing alone in a large clearing, though the forest is slowly encroaching from all sides.

Smell the air — the pine sap scent is strong, and your nose can tell there is moving water somewhere nearby, even if your ears cannot yet hear it. Now you should continue, following a clear trail deeper into the forest. Your footfalls are muffled by pine needles, and the air seems still. The scent and after a while the sound of water is to your left as you walk, and after a short time, you arrive at a fork, with three paths to choose from.

You have been here before – normally we take the middle road. But today, coming walking towards you down that middle road is our Lady herself. She nods at you, and indicates for you to follow, leading you down the path to your left. A bit further on, she crosses a bridge over a small creek that is running high, and then the path turns again, and you can see that ahead of you it dead ends into a large field of some kind of golden grain, ripe and ready for the harvest.

As you come to the edge of a field, you see many people dressed in clothes of the early medieval period, singing and doing the hard work of harvest: those with strong shoulders swinging scythes, those with nimble fingers tying bundles, and others reaching down to collect the pieces that fall to the ground.

Two figures are larger than life and seem almost to shine with divine light, much like Freyja does. The man in stripped to the waist and wielding a scythe. With every swing of his scythe he cuts more than ten times any other person here. And when he turns to look at you and Freyja, you notice the family resemblance, how he is like a mirror of his sister: this is Freyr. The other figure is a woman with long golden hair that flows unbound around her. She is using her own hair in place of twine to tie the heaps of grain that Freyr cuts into bundles. As she looks up to smile at you, you realize this must be Sif*.

You may speak to either Sif or Freyr if you choose; or else join in the work and speak to the ancestors gathered here, to see what wisdom they might share about the work of the harvest.

[interlude]

When you are finished speaking with whomever you chose, say your farewells and return to Freyja’s side. You may speak to her as well, if you wish, on the walk back to the fork in the path. When you return to that crossroads, bid Freyja farewell, and then continue back the way you came: through the forest, to the mound, through the mound-tunnel and out from under the root, across the plain, and back to the gate, through the tunnel of trees, and back to the meadow. Then the mist will swirl up again, and take you back to your body.

* Okay, yeah, I know, Sif being a grain goddess is just supposition with no real evidence to back it up, but a lot of people do cast Sif in this role, and also when I tried to ask Freyja if I could equivocate without naming her as Sif, Freyja point blank insisted. Which still doesn’t prove anything, but my role here is to share what I’m told to share and I’m sure Freyja has her reasons.

Also, announcement: I’m currently migrating the website, so things might be a little wonky for a bit; bear with me, and as always, you can reach me via email and I’ll sort you out!

Absolute Beginner Meditation Exercises

I’ve already blogged about Grounding/Centering and Shielding, and while those are prerequisites to journeywork, they are not required for the following short meditation exercises. These are also a prerequisite for more complicated forms of meditation, but they are designed to be done basically anywhere with anything, though I’ll be using two specific examples.

Open Attention: A Cup of Tea

I call this a tea meditation because I like tea, but you can do it with any flavored beverage (or soup, or water if you can tell what water tastes like, but it works better with flavor).

First, prepare your beverage to your taste, and an appropriate drinking temperature, and find a mostly quiet and calm place to sit. It doesn’t need to be perfectly silent and it’s probably better for your later progress if it isn’t, but a too-distracting environment isn’t great, either. Background music may help.

Once you’re ready, what you’re going to do is hold your beverage, and begin to notice EVERYTHING. Drop your attention out of your head and really notice everything in your body, first. What can you feel? Do you have aches and pains, discomfort? Allow yourself to move slowly if a change of posture might relieve those, and really feel the sensations of movement, each muscle tensing and relaxing. Can you feel your clothing? Your hair? Any jewelry or other adornments? Can you feel the ground, or what you’re sitting on? What about sunlight, or air currents? What do you see? Without moving your head around too much, what is nearby? You’ve probably already noticed large objects, but what about the tiny details? Imperfections in paint or tile if you’re inside? Slightly wilted leaves outside? Really try to take in all the details, as though you’re trying to memorize the scene. But don’t feel pressured, there’s no quiz. The goal is simple awareness. Can you take in visual detail and still remain aware of the tactile sensations we went over earlier? On top of that, can you add smells? Humans have a pretty good sense of smell, on average, we just don’t pay as much attention to it as our canine friends do. But now that you are paying attention, what can you smell? Your beverage, probably. But what else? Can you smell yourself? Are there other ambient odors? Once you think you’ve become aware of the smells near you, take a moment to really focus on your beverage. Notice how the smell changes, gets stronger, as you lift it up to your face. Take a drink, and see how much you can taste. What ingredients are in your beverage? What sort of notes can you detect? Can you catalog them while not losing awareness of your other senses? Swallow and then return to trying to integrate all sensory input, and just letting it flow in and through you. Catalog it, but don’t judge what you notice, and don’t judge yourself for noticing or for losing focus. If you lose focus, just take another sip and calmly return to cataloging, until you’ve hit your time goal.

Then slowly return to normal awareness. I recommend finishing the beverage if you have not, and then perhaps having a little snack or doing a little physical movement – shaking yourself out, or a couple of stretches, maybe – to bring yourself back into mundane consciousness.

Focused Attention: A Single Candle

First, find a candle and a flat and safe place to set it down to burn. A jar candles on a wood table would be perfect. Taper candles and candle holders might work if there’s nothing that may knock it over and if there’s nothing flammable it can fall on. It will work best if the area you’re using has a calm and mostly quiet. It doesn’t need to be perfectly silent and it’s probably better for your later progress if it isn’t, but a too-distracting environment isn’t great, either. If there’s too much intermittent noise, try headphones and some kind of white noise or background music. (Check out these generators.)

Once you’re set up, light the candle, and focus on the flame. As you do so, begin to count your breaths. Count slowly as you inhale, and then as you hold briefly, and then as you exhale, and briefly hold again. It may take you a little bit of trial and error to figure out what counts work best for you, but many people suggest square breathing, where each portion is a count of four. 1, 2, 3, 4, in; 1, 2, 3, 4, hold in; 1, 2, 3, 4, out; 1, 2, 3, 4, hold out. I personally find that a count of 7 in, 3 hold, 7 out, 3 hold works better for me to shift my state of consciousness, so feel free to experiment. Just keep focusing on the candle as you breathe.

If your mind starts to wander or you lose count in your breaths, just gently come back into the pattern. If you find that the candle flame is not enough to occupy your mind, consider adding a short phrase that you repeat either quietly in your head, or with every exhale. Alternatively, get something for your hands to fiddle with to help you direct your focus elsewhere. Try to maintain this focus, but do not be hard on yourself for losing focus. Just keep practicing.

If it becomes too difficult to continue focusing, or if you have reached the end of your target meditation length, thank the candle for its help and put it out. Slowly return to normal breathing and normal awareness. You may need to get up and stretch and have a snack to accomplish that.

Practice makes Perfect!

These are short, and doing them just once isn’t really going to help you. Instead, it’s best to build a practice around both. Doing both of them (at different times of day, not back-to-back) every day for three weeks would be ideal, and you’d notice a lot of progress in that time. However, that’s not something I’d probably manage without dropping some of the other balls I’m juggling, and I know that’s not realistic for some of you, either. So instead, I suggest doing either of them 5 times a week for four weeks, instead. Some days you can do two to make up for a missed day, but don’t do more than two in a day, and don’t go more than three days in a row without doing one exercise, if you can help it. If you can’t avoid that, you may want to continue for an extra week at the end of your month.

If you find as you go along that you can sit for longer than the 5 minutes, by all means do so! Ideally as you get more comfortable with these and the mental state begins to come naturally, you will be able to sit in it for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. That may take another few weeks, though after you feel more solid in your practice you can back off to doing it just a couple times a week without losing progress. More practice still means faster progress, however!

I also suggest journaling the experience, even if it’s just a couple of brief words in a note on your phone: “7/11/19. Candle meditation. Went well.” Or “7/12/19. Coffee meditation. Couldn’t keep focus.” It will be clearer to you that you’re making progress, and you won’t have try to count how many times you managed already this week.

Two Powers Meditation

I’ve begun working on a Grimoire, mostly for myself, but I thought the entry I wrote that outlines my version of the well known and often used Two Powers meditation might be of interest here, too. If you try this yourself, first find a comfortable place to sit, without too many distractions. Some people may find that they can read it over and then close their eyes and follow the instructions. Others may want to record themselves reading it so they can listen to it play back. See what works best for you.

We start, as all such things must start, with finding one’s center, and one’s place in the Worlds.

Breathe deep, child. You inhabit a body, but you are not body alone. Breathe deep, and feel not just air but energy that fills you up. Breathe until you are full to bursting, child, until you feel every piece of yourself swirling around your core, the spark of your being. Then breathe out, and reach down.

Reach down, and feel the earth below you. It is green and growing, brown and decaying, reach down into it like the roots of a tree. Deeper than soil is quiet grey stone. Continue down. Through the stone move cold waters, underground rivers and pools. Stop there and breathe those energies in. Deep cool energies, a mix of earth and water.

Those who feel comfortable doing so should only pause here briefly before going deeper. Deeper and deeper, until the cold becomes warm, until the warm becomes hot, until the stone becomes lava. It warms you, but does not hurt, though things you carry but do not need may be burned away. Let the lava cleanse you, a mixture of fire and earth. Stay here until you feel emptied of things you do not need.

Then rise, rise and bring the energies with you. Breathe them in as you rise into yourself. Pull the energies into your feet, the cauldron of your belly, the cauldron of your heart, and the cauldron of your head. Let them spill out the top of your head and run down your body, back into the earth.

Then reach up, child, up into the air, and into the sky. Up and up and up like the branches of a tree, up and feel the warmth of the sun. Bask in it, air mixed with fire, and breathe those energies in.

Those who feel comfortable doing so should only pause here briefly before going higher. Higher, higher, into the atmosphere and past it, out into space, towards the light of the stars. Breathe in that cool, cleansing light, mixture of air and water, and draw it down into yourself.

Pull it down into the cauldron of your head, and as it touches the earth energies, it sparks and begins to glow. Pull that energy down from the stars again to the cauldron of your heart – watch it spark, and as it mingles, begin to glow. Pull it down with another breath, into the cauldron of your belly, to spark and mingle and glow. One more pull with one more breath brings the energy down your legs and out your feet, only to return, running over your skin, to the sky.

You now hold both energies within you, child. Let them mingle and glow. Hold the balance. In this moment, you are the world tree, spanning the cosmos. You are of the earth and the sky and you are here at the center of all things. Take one last deep breath in, and then breathe it out and let it go. Some of the energies will stay with you, for you are always connected to everything else, but for now, return to yourself, your center. Be whole.