Late Late Late, but better late than never, Freyja assures me. This should have been posted more than a week ago, apologies, but, hey, the website is up again!
As before, this is based on my experience, and I’m offering it to the community in case 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) and to the Norns 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: Beneath the Tree
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, prepared to circle around it clockwise as before, you instead see Freyja standing in front of you. She beckons you in the other direction, and before the entrance under another great root, she casts a cloak over you, turning you into a falcon, and as you fall to the ground, she changes herself and leaps into the air, giving you no choice but to follow her through the opening under the root, and into the gloom.
Within, she glows brightly enough that you can follow her easily: down and around the path spirals, over rivers and past mountains and forests - other worlds branch out from here. And then, in front of a large well, around which sit three ancient beings, Frejya throws back her cloak to regain her usual form, and reaches out an arm for you to land on. When you do, she changes you back as well, and holds you by the arm lest you stumble into the Well.
These are the Norns - Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, who know the fate of all beings and can read all of time in the runes in the rime.
"Put your offering into the water," Freyja instructs you, "and then speak the question that weighs heavy on your heart."
Do so, and wait patiently for the answer.
[interlude]
When you are satisfied with the answer, or when they have no more to tell you this time, thank them for the wisdom you have received, and turn back to Frejya. She will turn you back into a falcon and then lead you on the return journey: up and around, up and around, back out the entrance you came through beneath the root.
Out in the open air again, she removes her cloak and yours, and at this time if you have anything you wish to tell her or ask her, you should do so, before departing.
When you are finished, return the way you came, 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.