My apple spice haunted house cake!
In my home practice, the Autumnal Equinox is a celebration of Freyr and Freyja, although that celebration often dovetails with both the Pleiades acronychal rising and Rosh Hashanah. Generally, I try to make something that has both apples and honey, drawing on the common themes. This year I made an apple spice cake in a spooky bundt pan, but with no honey due to the allergies of a household member. (Then I went back and made a honey-filled fairy cake, hold the spice, as you saw in the previous post, and there will be raw apples dipped in honey for tomorrow.) That was the main focus of my celebration: just food shared with my household, our household spirits, our ancestors, and the two deities of the occasion.
A few days previous, I did a journey to check in with Freyr and Freyja, to see what they wanted for their holiday, and that’s when I got the go-ahead to make the apple spice cake. I also asked about something that had been flitting in my head for a few weeks, which I was pretty sure had come from her. I’d had an inkling that she wanted something monthly from me, going forward — that she was finally ready to step up (or rather that I was finally ready for her to step up) and become more central to my practice. I had the term “Falcon Flights” rattling around in my head, as a sort of analogue to “Crow Calls”, but until I went to journey to her I didn’t know what that meant. I had sort of guessed that it was meant to be something oracular, in keeping with my Dark Moon rituals to Na Morrigna, and my previous Bright Moon rituals to the Eyes of Ra, but, nope. She wants me to write and share journey prompts. “Falcon Flights”, indeed.
This month is a little late, but for next year I’ll be doing these from equinox to equinox, on the waxing half moon before the solstice and the waning half moon after the solstice, so this will be the only one until next March, and they will only overlap with the Morrigna Dark Moons in August and potentially September (depending on the moon cycle). This year that waning half was the 17th, before the equinox, but I didn’t journey to see her and Freyr until after that (whoops!).
The Dark Wood Tarot
I also asked her what tarot deck she wanted to go with the runes (similar to how the Morrigna have a preferred tarot deck that I use alongside ogham), and she picked…. none of the ones I already had. We settled on the Dark Wood Tarot, by Abigail Larson and Sasha Graham, published by Llewellyn Books, and that got here yesterday, at which point I clarified a couple of things about this new endeavor via divination, and then… I got enormously sidetracked by my Way Opening celebration. After that, I just didn’t have the energy to do another journey (to test the prompt) and then write up a blog, so I apologized and begged off and here I am on Saturday night, writing it up now, instead.
Note: This journey prompt is based on cosmology used by my Seidr Guild, which was adapted from Hrafnar’s cosmology as written down in Diana Paxson’s book The Way of the Oracle. If you have your own method of getting to Freyja or Folkvangr, feel free to use that, instead! And I hope I don’t need to say it, but I’m only providing a prompt; you do this journey at your own risk. Try to do it safely, and practice good spiritual hygiene! This doesn’t have much of a lead-in or return, as it’s meant for a more advanced audience, so do whatever your usual routine is for trance and journey work: cleanse, shield, ground, center, etc. You could write out a longer script and then even record it, maybe, if you work better from an audio file than a written prompt. Make it work for you, and your practice! I’m just the messenger, not the keeper of orthopraxy.
Falcon Flight to Himingbjorg
(Prepare an offering for Freyja, and one for Heimdall, before beginning.)
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.
One path curves to the left, and you can just make out a bridge over a creek in the distance. The one to the right seems to vanish into the trees. Continue down the middle path, which leads straight ahead. After a while, the trees seem to thin a bit, and the underbrush grows less tangled. There is a little smoke in the sky, above the rise of the hill, as though it comes from a hearth-fire, and you follow the path towards it.
As the path reaches the edge of the forest, and the pine needles give way to a large open field, your eyes are drawn to the great hall. It is large, and you know at once to whom it belongs. This is Freyja’s Hall, Sessrumnir, and you are in Folkvangr. Go and find the Lady of this place, and give her the offering you brought.
When she has accepted your offering, ask for the lend of her falcon cloak, that you might fly on to your next destination with her blessing. Place it on your shoulders, and hold still as she waves her staff over your head, completing your transformation.
Take off into the sky then, and fly! Fly for the sheer joy of it, swoop and roll. Higher and higher — but do not forget your ultimate destination. You seek the Bifrost, that you might follow it to Himingbjorg, Heimdall’s cloud-castle.
When you arrive at Himingbjorg, alight on the wall — Heimdall will help you regain your own shape.
Thank him, and then give him the offering you brought.
Once he has accepted it, you may ask one question and one question only, and he will show you what he can see from up here, and give you your answer.
When you are well answered, ask him to help you transform once more, and then return to Freyja, waiting for you on the ground.
After she returns you to your own form, give her back the cloak and thank her. If there is anything else you wish to say to her, do it now.
When you are ready to depart, go 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.