Spring is back, and so are these Falcon Flights - on the full moon now, to help me keep my plan to blog every other week. As before, this journey 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) before you begin. Please note: if you have a phobia of caves or drowning, this may not be a good meditation for you. Otherwise, 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: Purifying Waters
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. Then, suddenly, ahead of you there is a bridge over a nearly-empty gorge, just a trickle of a stream at the bottom, and one you have never seen before, though you have traveled this way many times before.
As you cross the bridge, look to your right, and there in the cliff wall on the other side, you will see crudely cut stairs. Cross the bridge and walk to them, and carefully descend. They seem more inviting from this side, though, and your feet are sure in their steps. As you come to the bottom, follow the trickle of water downstream. It gets a bit wider as you continue, until ahead of you there is a wide, deep, pool.
Wade in to the pool, and when it is chest-deep, take a deep breath and plunge in, submerging yourself fully... and letting the water drag you under. Let it pull you through the underground passageway, and then when you think you can't hold your breath any longer, you'll feel yourself bob to the surface, inside another deep pool - this one in a cave. The ceiling is full of shimmering stalactites, and there is a dry portion, where a small fire is lit. There is a hole in the roof above the fire, letting the smoke out, but you see no other way out of this chamber.
Climb up the bank and move closer to the fire. Here is some more wood piled up, though it is unclear how it got here, and hanging over it is a large ragged towel or blanket. Next to it, folded, is some kind of garment. Remove your wet clothes and dry off on the towel, and then unfold the garment - it is a feathered cloak.
Toss the cloak around your shoulders, and feel yourself transform into a falcon. You know this form, and you can easily launch yourself into the air, and fly out through the hole in the roof.
You'll emerge on the far side of Folkvangr. Land and transform back, and you'll see a veiled priestess at the door. Take new clothing from her, and hand her the cloak - once you are dressed, your purification is complete, and you may enter.
Once inside, you will find Freyja seated on the dais. Ask her the question that weighs heaviest on your heart.
[interlude]
When you are finished speaking with Freyja, go out the door of the hall on the side opposite to where you came in, down the usual the forest path, through the forest, across the bridge again, 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.