By G. Krasskova
I’m not sure what I’m permitted to say in retrospect about this ordeal. Much of what I learned I am tabooed, by specific Deities, from committing to print. I expect this will be a very brief and skeletal account. Still, I shall try my best to convey what I experienced. Like Midgard, this was not a physically painful ordeal at all, though it was grueling in its own way. It seems that for me, the alfar light and dark, preferred psychological ordeal to physical suffering. I suppose physical suffering seemed too … lacking in subtlety for their tastes in this case. Also, one of their oft-used techniques is glamour and psychological mesmerism. It makes sense that their ordeals would incorporate not physical pain, but a stretching and widening of my psychological and mental boundaries. All in all, they were very gentle and fairly hands off with me…as these things go.
This ordeal took place in June, in the middle of my six week sojourn in Germany. I went to Belgium for the weekend, to visit a local ordeal master there H. She and I had previously arranged for her to facilitate this ordeal for me at that time. I had been told beforehand that this ordeal might involve taking legal, psychoactive substances that would drive me temporarily mad. My greatest fear is losing control and going crazy. I needed to learn that I could lose control and come back from that place. As it was, it turned out to be quite a different ordeal than I had expected, as much of that particular lesson had already been learned somewhere between Jotunheim and Vanaheim. Instead, I was pulled into their world, the outer lands of Alfheim, by means that I found terrifying.
The day after I arrived, H. and I rose early to prepare for the ordeal. We set up a lavoo tent in her backyard. We got a fire going inside the tent and she went to prepare the herbal preparation I would have to take. I felt the Alfar come, honor guard for the Goddess I was to meet. They ringed the space as we transitioned between worlds, watching over all that occurred. H. came back with a bottle of tincture and a pipe. We were going to use salvia divinorum to enter fully into their world. This herb is completely legal and yet it has the ability to take a person into the salvia world, or in this case, into the alfar realms. The spirit of salvia is a … handmaiden of the Green Goddess. (I don’t know Her by any other name. She is one of the primary Alfar Deities, Queen of the Green Fire). Sometimes Salvia will allow herself to be used as a vessel by this Goddess.
I rarely work with plant spirits and never with psychoactive substances. I find this particular path to be utterly terrifying. It is deadly dangerous, more so than any ordeal practice I have ever engaged in. I have immense respect for those shamans and spirit-workers who use psychoactive substances as a primary part of their work. I never want to join their ranks! Certainly part of why I was required to do this lay in the path of Odin that I walk. He is, in part, a plant shaman and healer. It followed that I too must experience a tiny bit of what that is like, even if only in the briefest, most controlled microcosm, to truly understand (in whatever capacity my human brain allows) the greater macrocosm of His experiences there.
Over the course of the next few hours, I took several preparations of salvia both via smoke and via tincture. The Midgard world dissolved around me and I heard the voice of the fire. All the fires. I became part of that pushing, inexorable, primal rhythm. Beyond that, I cannot speak. These are the things I have promised never to put into print. I met the Alfar Goddess. I experienced the state in which the Alfar exist. I came to understand much of their culture: why it is the way it is, why certain protocols exist, what it means to be almost fully of the green fire. I established a tie to that world and apparently conducted myself with appropriate decorum. This was an important part of all my ordeals: Odin was sending me to the various worlds for me to make myself known, and establish contacts and links. To do that, I had to understand and accept the specific protocols of each place.
One aftereffect of this ordeal was that it opened me much more fully to plant spirits. It’s also made me much more cognizant of the living fire that flows through every single thing: human, mineral, plant, animal. It’s changed my way and understanding of being in the world. I also gained much more respect for the Alfar in general. I wish that I could write more about my experiences during this ordeal. It felt very much like a transition point. This was it, this was the last stop on the journey before meeting my Lord in Asgard.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Serving Odin - the Seventh Ordeal: Vanaheim
By G. Krasskova
I do not belong to the Vanir. I am owned instead by Odin as anyone who has read my work can easily ascertain. I also have a strong affinity for Loki. With the exception of Gerda, I had not until recently had much interaction with any of the Vanir or Those other Deities commonly associated with Them. It was, however at Odin’s behest that I first sought out Vanaheim, as part of my series of nine ritual ordeals. Each ordeal has given me access to one of the Nine Worlds and each has been governed by one of the Deities who rule in that particular world. With each ordeal, I gain knowledge, skill and make necessary sacrifices of the self. Many of the ordeals have been wrenching. Nearly all have been physically painful in some way. Sandwiched as it was between my Jotunheim ordeal (which had proved emotionally quite devastating) and Alfheim (which, being a completely unknown quantity filled me with trepidation in the days preceding it), I had not expected Vanaheim to prove much of a challenge. It seemed pretty clear cut to me: land, dirt, cycles of land, more dirt, etc. In retrospect, my hubris amazes even me.
Of course, like many Heathens, I honored the Vanir when the occasion arose as Gods of fertility, abundance, wealth, and bounty of land and sea but beyond that I gave Them little thought. I, warrior trained, warrior called, valkyrie of the grimmest of Gods had little love or respect for the secrets and mysteries these bright Gods hold. Even within my ancestral venerations, I often disparaged ancestors who were farmers, preferring instead to honor those who had served in the military, who did not make their living from the land. Furthermore as a city dweller (a very happy city dweller) I’d had little interaction with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world for all that I might have had abstract understanding of them. Much of this was to change with this particular ordeal.
The first part of my Vanaheim ordeal occurred late in May. A friend, colleague, shaman, and farmer agreed to facilitate for me. Nerthus was to hold the secrets for me in this particular ordeal. She was the Goddess I had to face and by whom I was to be humbled. I have heard many people describe Nerthus as a comforting, loving, gentle Mother Goddess. Mother Goddess She may indeed be but She is also terrifying, harsh, implacable and fierce. This is the Goddess referenced in Tacitus who commonly received human sacrifice as Her due after all.
She commanded that I be buried alive. She is about life yes, but also death and the cycles in between that connect the two. She is about the wisdom of the earth, the vicious clarity of the land that devours and from that ruthless devouring spews forth new life. A trench was dug and covered with thick netting (thankfully I was not required to actually lay covered completely with dirt. I am a kinesthetic learner and needed some minor mobility to best process the lessons that were to be forthcoming). Naked, with only prayer beads, a journal and water to sustain me, I was committed to the pit. It was agreed upon that once every four hours someone would come to check on me, bringing me water and a minimal amount of food (organic greens, grain, nuts) but otherwise I was permitted no human contact during this time. I was to stay until Nerthus gave me permission to depart.
Isolation is a powerful tool particularly when it is filled with the presence of a Goddess so terrifying that ancient acolytes were not permitted to gaze even upon Her unveiled images. She showed me directly the cycle of life-into-death-into-life contained in the land itself. I saw insects and spiders creeping about the leaves and dirt that filled the trench with me, creeping between roots of bushes and trees. I saw that dirt itself was not some inactive substance devoid of life but that it was the raw substance from which life is born, a living, shifting, very active biosphere. I later learned that there are more living organisms in a handful of dirt than there are human beings on the planet and so much life and death going on there that it’s not surprising Nerthus is Herself terrifying.
For six hours She kept me in the pit. Her lessons weren’t only about the sacredness of dirt but also of the primal bond that one has with one’s mother (even if not one’s biological mother…in my case, She honored the woman who has served as my adopted mother, bringing home just how sacred and important that bond was on a wyrd level). She forced me to examine my own misogyny and distaste for the typical cultural markers of “womanhood.”
Moreover, Nerthus challenged me to honor my body as I had never once honored it before. I spent years as a professional ballet dancer, a career in which neglect and harsh treatment of one’s body is de rigueur. For more than half my lifetime I had looked upon my body as ‘the enemy.’ Nerthus spoke about the importance of embodiment and drove home the point that we are not separate from our bodies, but that our bodies are an integral part of how we are meant to interact with not only each other but with the Gods Themselves. This is all the more important for shamans and spiritworkers: our bodies are one of the primary interfaces through which we communicate that which comes from the Gods. Our bodies are the primary tools with which we work, the means by which we function, acquire and disseminate knowledge. Our bodies are an immense gift.
After six hours I was allowed to leave the pit and forced to walk around and around a sacred labyrinth (the ordeal took place on land that has had a stone labyrinth for years) then it was back to the pit for another six hours. Eventually, I was allowed to emerge into the darkness (it was after midnight) and I made the journey, naked, barefoot, exhausted from the pit through the woods back to my friend’s house. She let me go with the understanding that I had gleaned about half of the lessons I was meant to. I knew, walking through the woods in the pitch black darkness that there would be at least one more part to my Vanaheim ordeal. I was being given leeway to process the lessons She had given me first.
The second part of my ordeal took place under the guidance of Frey. He spoke to my adopted mother, and outlined a three day ordeal, also to take place at my friend’s farm. This was designed, I believe, to break me of my arrogance and disregard of my farmer ancestors. During the first day of the ordeal, I was required to work the land. I stayed with a friend who is a farmer and during this day, I worked for several hours in his vegetable garden, working the soil by hand. My adopted mother and I were permitted to eat one handful of food for each hour worked. The food had to be comprised of grains, fruits, or vegetables only and had to be organic.
On the second day of the ordeal, both I and my adopted mother were required to completely fast, consuming only water. During that time, I worked several hours in my friend’s vegetable garden. On the third day, there were no words given. Instead, I walked down to the field, the same field in which I had been buried for Nerthus. In the North end of this field stands a carved God-pole dedicated to Frey. There I made offerings to this God and listened to His words and His admonition: Remember. Remember what you have learned. Remember.
Frey’s Lesson:
Day One
“Peace is a terrible thing. It demands as many sacrifices and as much discipline as war. I, Ingvi Freyr, know this, who will die in battle, who can fight as fiercely as the best warriors, yet chose to become a hostage in the name of peace and for the sake of peace. No coward I, no pacifist, but yet I am a Peace-Keeper.
That is what you must learn, my child. That to be a warrior you have to honor peace and peace-keepers with the same immediacy you feel toward war and warriors. You who know to give equal respect to Odin and Loki without falling into the trap of either/or should give equal respect to war and peace.
To be a farmer is like being a priest and as sacred: Farmers are the hallowers and priests of my blood. Every year, I submit to my throat being scythed, to my blood being spilled to hallow and fructify the earth so it may nourish the people. Farmers are the link between my blood and people being fed. Without the farmer, my blood is spilled for nothing, for working the soil is the only rite that will give power to my sacrifice.
This is what you must learn, my child: that to be a priest you have to honor the farmer as your equal. Honor your farmer ancestors. If you miss a part, you miss the whole. I am Ingvi Freyr, Peace-Keeper and Fighter, and Farmer. Come to me on the third day.
During the first day remember, a whole season will be contained in this one day, and in that time you are the link between My blood, the earth and the sustaining of your foster mother. In that time, she is your old mother, your pregnant wife, your small daughter—all that which you love and which depends upon your holy skill and strength at farming. If you fail, My blood is disregarded, desecrated by neglect. Earth lies fallow and your loved ones starve.”
Day Two
“Today contains all of the next season and it will be hard because warriors rode through your land. They needed food so they took all they could, all you had worked for. They rode through the grain; they took your goat and most of your hens. They filled a sack with the contents of your storeroom. You have nothing. That is what war does to peace. That is partly why I became hostage. So work the soil, on an empty stomach, to salvage what you may of My blood and your effort so that you may not starve tomorrow. Today you will not be able to feed either yourself or your foster mother whom you love. That is what war does to peace.” (It is important to note that this was not an accusation. It was said without judgment. It was merely a statement of fact).
Day Three
On the third day, no words were given. I was expected to open myself to Freyr directly and to receive His wisdom. One of the things that I learned, I who am so proud of my warrior’s calling, was that war and peace, warriors and farmers are intertwined. Yes, the farmer is at the mercy of the warrior but so too is the warrior at the mercy of the farmer. One must always eat after all. I was reminded of the Napoleonic Wars when French forces tried to take Russia and the Russian farmers starved the invading soldiers by burning their own fields as they retreated giving the invading army no sustenance. That is the power of the farmer.
I know that there is still the final third of my Vanaheim ordeal to go: I must work with Freya. I’m not sure what form this work will take, but it seems for me, Vanaheim has become the central spiritual axis around which all the other ordeals revolve. Perhaps this is because finding the holy in the process of living, in embodiment, in the faulty nature of my own humanity has been an incredibly difficult process for me, perhaps because my warrior’s arrogance is so great, perhaps because the places and ways in which I am broken and scarred require this often terrifying balm. I don’t know. I only know that the Vanir have been immensely kind to me even as they have challenged and at times goaded me into knowledge. And I am grateful.
I do not belong to the Vanir. I am owned instead by Odin as anyone who has read my work can easily ascertain. I also have a strong affinity for Loki. With the exception of Gerda, I had not until recently had much interaction with any of the Vanir or Those other Deities commonly associated with Them. It was, however at Odin’s behest that I first sought out Vanaheim, as part of my series of nine ritual ordeals. Each ordeal has given me access to one of the Nine Worlds and each has been governed by one of the Deities who rule in that particular world. With each ordeal, I gain knowledge, skill and make necessary sacrifices of the self. Many of the ordeals have been wrenching. Nearly all have been physically painful in some way. Sandwiched as it was between my Jotunheim ordeal (which had proved emotionally quite devastating) and Alfheim (which, being a completely unknown quantity filled me with trepidation in the days preceding it), I had not expected Vanaheim to prove much of a challenge. It seemed pretty clear cut to me: land, dirt, cycles of land, more dirt, etc. In retrospect, my hubris amazes even me.
Of course, like many Heathens, I honored the Vanir when the occasion arose as Gods of fertility, abundance, wealth, and bounty of land and sea but beyond that I gave Them little thought. I, warrior trained, warrior called, valkyrie of the grimmest of Gods had little love or respect for the secrets and mysteries these bright Gods hold. Even within my ancestral venerations, I often disparaged ancestors who were farmers, preferring instead to honor those who had served in the military, who did not make their living from the land. Furthermore as a city dweller (a very happy city dweller) I’d had little interaction with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world for all that I might have had abstract understanding of them. Much of this was to change with this particular ordeal.
The first part of my Vanaheim ordeal occurred late in May. A friend, colleague, shaman, and farmer agreed to facilitate for me. Nerthus was to hold the secrets for me in this particular ordeal. She was the Goddess I had to face and by whom I was to be humbled. I have heard many people describe Nerthus as a comforting, loving, gentle Mother Goddess. Mother Goddess She may indeed be but She is also terrifying, harsh, implacable and fierce. This is the Goddess referenced in Tacitus who commonly received human sacrifice as Her due after all.
She commanded that I be buried alive. She is about life yes, but also death and the cycles in between that connect the two. She is about the wisdom of the earth, the vicious clarity of the land that devours and from that ruthless devouring spews forth new life. A trench was dug and covered with thick netting (thankfully I was not required to actually lay covered completely with dirt. I am a kinesthetic learner and needed some minor mobility to best process the lessons that were to be forthcoming). Naked, with only prayer beads, a journal and water to sustain me, I was committed to the pit. It was agreed upon that once every four hours someone would come to check on me, bringing me water and a minimal amount of food (organic greens, grain, nuts) but otherwise I was permitted no human contact during this time. I was to stay until Nerthus gave me permission to depart.
Isolation is a powerful tool particularly when it is filled with the presence of a Goddess so terrifying that ancient acolytes were not permitted to gaze even upon Her unveiled images. She showed me directly the cycle of life-into-death-into-life contained in the land itself. I saw insects and spiders creeping about the leaves and dirt that filled the trench with me, creeping between roots of bushes and trees. I saw that dirt itself was not some inactive substance devoid of life but that it was the raw substance from which life is born, a living, shifting, very active biosphere. I later learned that there are more living organisms in a handful of dirt than there are human beings on the planet and so much life and death going on there that it’s not surprising Nerthus is Herself terrifying.
For six hours She kept me in the pit. Her lessons weren’t only about the sacredness of dirt but also of the primal bond that one has with one’s mother (even if not one’s biological mother…in my case, She honored the woman who has served as my adopted mother, bringing home just how sacred and important that bond was on a wyrd level). She forced me to examine my own misogyny and distaste for the typical cultural markers of “womanhood.”
Moreover, Nerthus challenged me to honor my body as I had never once honored it before. I spent years as a professional ballet dancer, a career in which neglect and harsh treatment of one’s body is de rigueur. For more than half my lifetime I had looked upon my body as ‘the enemy.’ Nerthus spoke about the importance of embodiment and drove home the point that we are not separate from our bodies, but that our bodies are an integral part of how we are meant to interact with not only each other but with the Gods Themselves. This is all the more important for shamans and spiritworkers: our bodies are one of the primary interfaces through which we communicate that which comes from the Gods. Our bodies are the primary tools with which we work, the means by which we function, acquire and disseminate knowledge. Our bodies are an immense gift.
After six hours I was allowed to leave the pit and forced to walk around and around a sacred labyrinth (the ordeal took place on land that has had a stone labyrinth for years) then it was back to the pit for another six hours. Eventually, I was allowed to emerge into the darkness (it was after midnight) and I made the journey, naked, barefoot, exhausted from the pit through the woods back to my friend’s house. She let me go with the understanding that I had gleaned about half of the lessons I was meant to. I knew, walking through the woods in the pitch black darkness that there would be at least one more part to my Vanaheim ordeal. I was being given leeway to process the lessons She had given me first.
The second part of my ordeal took place under the guidance of Frey. He spoke to my adopted mother, and outlined a three day ordeal, also to take place at my friend’s farm. This was designed, I believe, to break me of my arrogance and disregard of my farmer ancestors. During the first day of the ordeal, I was required to work the land. I stayed with a friend who is a farmer and during this day, I worked for several hours in his vegetable garden, working the soil by hand. My adopted mother and I were permitted to eat one handful of food for each hour worked. The food had to be comprised of grains, fruits, or vegetables only and had to be organic.
On the second day of the ordeal, both I and my adopted mother were required to completely fast, consuming only water. During that time, I worked several hours in my friend’s vegetable garden. On the third day, there were no words given. Instead, I walked down to the field, the same field in which I had been buried for Nerthus. In the North end of this field stands a carved God-pole dedicated to Frey. There I made offerings to this God and listened to His words and His admonition: Remember. Remember what you have learned. Remember.
Frey’s Lesson:
Day One
“Peace is a terrible thing. It demands as many sacrifices and as much discipline as war. I, Ingvi Freyr, know this, who will die in battle, who can fight as fiercely as the best warriors, yet chose to become a hostage in the name of peace and for the sake of peace. No coward I, no pacifist, but yet I am a Peace-Keeper.
That is what you must learn, my child. That to be a warrior you have to honor peace and peace-keepers with the same immediacy you feel toward war and warriors. You who know to give equal respect to Odin and Loki without falling into the trap of either/or should give equal respect to war and peace.
To be a farmer is like being a priest and as sacred: Farmers are the hallowers and priests of my blood. Every year, I submit to my throat being scythed, to my blood being spilled to hallow and fructify the earth so it may nourish the people. Farmers are the link between my blood and people being fed. Without the farmer, my blood is spilled for nothing, for working the soil is the only rite that will give power to my sacrifice.
This is what you must learn, my child: that to be a priest you have to honor the farmer as your equal. Honor your farmer ancestors. If you miss a part, you miss the whole. I am Ingvi Freyr, Peace-Keeper and Fighter, and Farmer. Come to me on the third day.
During the first day remember, a whole season will be contained in this one day, and in that time you are the link between My blood, the earth and the sustaining of your foster mother. In that time, she is your old mother, your pregnant wife, your small daughter—all that which you love and which depends upon your holy skill and strength at farming. If you fail, My blood is disregarded, desecrated by neglect. Earth lies fallow and your loved ones starve.”
Day Two
“Today contains all of the next season and it will be hard because warriors rode through your land. They needed food so they took all they could, all you had worked for. They rode through the grain; they took your goat and most of your hens. They filled a sack with the contents of your storeroom. You have nothing. That is what war does to peace. That is partly why I became hostage. So work the soil, on an empty stomach, to salvage what you may of My blood and your effort so that you may not starve tomorrow. Today you will not be able to feed either yourself or your foster mother whom you love. That is what war does to peace.” (It is important to note that this was not an accusation. It was said without judgment. It was merely a statement of fact).
Day Three
On the third day, no words were given. I was expected to open myself to Freyr directly and to receive His wisdom. One of the things that I learned, I who am so proud of my warrior’s calling, was that war and peace, warriors and farmers are intertwined. Yes, the farmer is at the mercy of the warrior but so too is the warrior at the mercy of the farmer. One must always eat after all. I was reminded of the Napoleonic Wars when French forces tried to take Russia and the Russian farmers starved the invading soldiers by burning their own fields as they retreated giving the invading army no sustenance. That is the power of the farmer.
I know that there is still the final third of my Vanaheim ordeal to go: I must work with Freya. I’m not sure what form this work will take, but it seems for me, Vanaheim has become the central spiritual axis around which all the other ordeals revolve. Perhaps this is because finding the holy in the process of living, in embodiment, in the faulty nature of my own humanity has been an incredibly difficult process for me, perhaps because my warrior’s arrogance is so great, perhaps because the places and ways in which I am broken and scarred require this often terrifying balm. I don’t know. I only know that the Vanir have been immensely kind to me even as they have challenged and at times goaded me into knowledge. And I am grateful.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Slaves, Service, and Words of Power
by Raven Kaldera
A friend recently directed me to the writing of a mutual acquaintance, a Vanir-focused Heathen (I believe; feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) who was musing over the issue of god-slavery- and, more interestingly, over the issue of spirit-workers who do not identify as god-slaves feeling threatened by those who do. While he thoughtfully acknowledged the reality of god-slavery in some people’s lives, he pointed out that it was the only named model of human/divine relationship (besides “god-spouse”) for the fledgling Pagan spirit-worker dynamic. In the Northern Tradition, which he practices, there is the word “godatheow”, coined by Galina Krasskova and indicating a god-slave, someone who is owned by a deity and has little or no agency in their lives because of this. He decided that there needed to be an intermediate term denoting a servant of the Gods, one with more agency and liberty than a slave. He came up with the word “godathegn”, referencing the term “thegn”, or “thain”, the noble servant of a lord or lady of a higher status than them. It would reference someone who had a strong (perhaps oathbound) bond with their deity, but had full agency except in some limited areas, and could leave if worst came to worst.
I fully approve of this. It gets the Raven Kaldera Stamp of Approval (something which may be the opposite of good publicity, but hey). I especially approve of people eschewing the all-too-common reaction of “Hey, this label doesn’t fit me, and that makes me feel bad! Quick, try to discredit it!” and instead reaching for, “This label doesn’t fit me. There needs to be another word in the lexicon, for comparison, which does. Here, I’ll find one!” As far as I’m concerned, the more language we have for how our Gods treat us, and how we form those bonds, and what we can expect, the better.
I was the first person to write about god-slavery in a book, and I did that because of all the positions on that continuum, “godatheow” is the scariest, the most difficult, the one that people in that position are least likely to be able to find resources to understand. A godatheow who fights out of lack of understanding is more likely to end up dead, unlike a godathegn (who will probably only have their maegen trashed). Now that I’ve paved a way for the most at-risk group, I welcome folks who will discuss less risky points on that continuum.
The irony in the current argument over whether god-slavery exists (or should exist, something that brings a wry laugh to those of us who are in that position) is that there is a similar argument raging in the BDSM demographic as we speak, over the word “slave” and its attendant meanings. That’s why this article is in Blood For The Divine and not God’s Mouths. Not all ordeal workers – and certainly not all or even most spirit-workers – come out of or have any connection with any BDSM community. But I do, and that gives me the right to observe and make interesting sociological comparisons.
For those who are not aware of the background: The majority of people in the BDSM demographic do not practice any kind of full-time consenting dominance and submission (the D and S in the acronym). They like to have kinky sex, and do SM. Of the percentage that do practice D/s (that’s what the acronym looks like when it stands on its own), most consider it “play”. Of the percentage of that group who take it seriously, most are part-time. Of the percentage of *that* group who do it 24/7, most of the “s-types” are voluntary submissives who have strong negotiated limits and could (and would) leave if those limits were violated. A much smaller percentage have voluntarily given up their limits to the care of their dominant, and trust them to make all the decisions and set all the limits for them – but could rescind those limits and leave if they chose. This is acronymed by some as TPE – Total Power Exchange. An even smaller percentage practice what is referred to (by them) as IE, or Internal Enslavement. This is a practice where the submissive voluntarily agrees to enter into specific conditioning that changes them radically, and renders them unable to disobey or leave. This practice is, to say the least, extremely controversial even among D/s practitioners, much less the entire BDSM demographic.
Now none of these is the same as nonconsensual slavery, of the type still practiced in many parts of the world, primarily economic in scope. Everyone on every part of the above continuum willingly signed up for their deal, and it came with a great deal of thought and negotiation (or should have, anyway). That’s a different experience from someone born into slavery in Yemen. Even the IE slave agreed to their situation and actively aided it. This is why some people object to using the word “slave” at all in BDSM practice, saying that using this term makes light of those oppressed individuals. However, that’s a small minority and mostly ignored. So who does claim the word “slave” over there?
There’s certainly a segment of the D/s population who claim that their relationship dynamic has moved from D/s to M/s – Master/Mistress and slave. Generally, many of the last three points mentioned on my continuum have a lot of folk who claim that D/s means “people who aren’t as extreme as us”, but there is no quorum and a great deal of infighting among them. The most controversial are the IE practitioners, some of whom claim that their s-types are the “real” slaves, because they can’t leave or disobey, and everyone south of that “only” has a D/s relationship. At least one forum (run by the individual who invented the IE term) asked that people on that forum respect these definitional lines, which of course enraged many newcomers. Some people want the right to use the word “slave” for a one-hour play session where no one is really submitting to anyone in any meaningful way. Others don’t like the idea that their deeply-valued voluntary submission isn’t worthy of the word “slave”.
This has culminated in a variety of very familiar attitudes towards IE practitioners. Some claim that it doesn’t exist and those people are just deluding themselves. Others claim that if it does exist, it is abusive and wrong and no one ought to do it. Some claim that they have the right to call themselves slaves no matter what their dynamic is, because they ought to be allowed to self-identify and not be challenged about it. Some accuse the IE people of constantly telling other people that their dynamic isn’t real enough or good enough, or that it’s the One True Way to do M/s, when there is little to no evidence of this (but people are hearing it even if it isn’t being said, somehow). There are even those who argue for the right to the title when they aren’t actually submissive to anyone (but would be, theoretically, if they could just find the right person). The same arguments are leveled at all full-time submissives by SM people who can’t imagine such a thing working, and so on up the line.
Many of these problems will sound heartbreakingly familiar to people in the Pagan spirit-work demographic, and I suppose that they prove that humans will be humans. Humans will also feel insecure in comparison to people who are doing something they might like to do but cannot for some reason, and they will read attitudes into those people that might not be there, and nothing that the target humans can say will be heard through the fear. One full-time “slave” pleaded that they weren’t saying that their way was the best any more than being a monk or nun was the only real way to be Catholic. Another IE slave wrote this (posted with permission):
"I have a fairly strict definition of what an owned slave is, and I find it useful to have space with people who share that definition to discuss practical and psychological aspects of ownership. People in non-ownership based D/s relationships have different struggles and issues. There is an area of overlap, and I can usefully discuss life in service with someone whether they are owned or not, but there are things that just don't translate.
See, I always considered voluntary honor-bound service to be more prestigious that "slavery", and I resisted the label of slave for quite some time. I felt the implication that I might have to be held by another’s will to be an insult to my loyalty and commitment. Then I became a slave, and here I am. How I got here is a long story, but suffice it to say that I know it’s the right place for me.
I'm not sure if I still consider voluntary ongoing submission to be more prestigious. It is what it is. I think one can achieve a higher ideal of pure service through active submission, because few masters really give as much of a damn about pure service in and of itself. They are generally more practical than that. Being a slave is easier, in a way. A submissive needs to be a stronger, more dedicated person to achieve excellence in their role. A slave need only be malleable.
I don't know if this will make any sense, but I'll try. To me it is like the difference between being a soldier and a monk, perhaps. A soldier will be pushed through his reluctance and wavering, by force if needed. A lesser man can become a fine soldier. It is easier to be a bad monk, so you have to be a better man to be a good monk. Some monastic orders are stricter than others and some will push you harder than others, but no one is going to force you to do anything at gunpoint. You need to maintain your own dedication.
Is one of them better than the other? No. They are just different. But if the soldier and the monk talk about their struggles with dedication and loyalty, they are going to come to some misunderstandings and confusion if one of them insists he is just the same as the other."
How does all this compare with Gods? Obviously, the continuum of human/divine relationship is as varied as the continuum of human/human power exchange relationships, and not entirely similar. Gods can get away with things that mortals can’t practically do. The godatheow area of the continuum does include nonconsensual grabbing up of people, as many shamans will tell you, and Gods cannot be held to human rules in many ways. And submitting to a mortal is just not even remotely on the scale of submitting to a deity in terms of their ability to know you inside and out. A mortal dominant can work towards transparency with their submissive and try their best to learn the inside of their head, but it just isn’t going to be as direct and total as communion with one’s god.
But there are still similarities. A good human master (of either gender) with more than one submissive will gear each relationship to the person involved. They won’t try for cookie-cutter dynamics for each one, and they will understand that what motivates one won’t work for another. If they are polyamorous, they might have subs in various areas of the continuum. I’ve personally got an IE-style slave, a part-time voluntary submissive who actually belongs to someone else, and some distant, heavily boundaried, nonsexual service relationships. Similarly, what a deity asks of one worshiper will be different from what they want of another. Part of that is what they have the cosmic right to take (which will vary person to person), part is what they know is the best way to get someone to respond (ditto), and part will be about the aspect of Deity that the human wishes to serve. (See my last piece about that issue. Gods can also pull the kind of “Jedi Mind Tricks” on people that skilled IE dominants sometimes manage to pull off, smoothly and subtly easing the submissive into a different opinion or different way of being. The difference is that gods are so much better at it.
It’s been ironic to watch these arguments in two separate and widely disparate demographics both happening simultaneously. (There’s got to be something astrological going on here!) In both cases, there have been misunderstandings, and eventual clarity, a process that is ongoing as knowledge spreads. The BDSM demographic is a little ahead in the information-and-understanding dance, but then again they are many times larger (and have more organized events). Now the challenge ahead of us is to come up with appropriate language and labels to describe that continuum that isn’t Northern Tradition, for the sake of all the folks in service to gods of other pantheons, or gods who have no useful cultural context. I have faith in us all. We can find words to create understanding, words that slice clean and clear through people’s insecurities, or at least grow on them after a few years until they find themselves using those terms first grudgingly, then naturally. We’ll do it … because we have to.
Words of power help people to feel that their own personal experience is a shared one, at least by a few other people, rather than dismissed. There’s no reason to dismiss anyone else’s experience except out of fear. Instead, they should be encouraged to talk about theirs, because those who feel that they have adequate space to describe their experience and have it met with interest and respect usually don’t feel a need to talk about that of others. They should be encouraged to talk about it, and name it. It’s not possible for me to speak from the experience of a godathegn, and therefore I shouldn’t try to do it. Let others describe that dynamic lovingly and with a pure show of their devotion, just as I’d encourage a part-time voluntary submissive in the BDSM community to do the same. If it’s what you have, whatever it is, try to find pride in it. That pride can block out the unspoken words that people remember, later, as having been spoken aloud. It can also remind us that the Gods don’t do things for no reason, and that service cleanly and lovingly done is always sacred, no matter who it’s done for, or under what conditions.
Sacred Pain - A Book Review
by Galina Krasskova
First published in 2001, Ariel Glucklich’s book Sacred Pain seeks to explore the elusive and universal nature of pain and its use, across cultures, as a religious tool. Specifically, Glucklich focuses on one theme: “the effect of ritual pain on consciousness and identity” (Glucklich: 8). By delving into the twin fields of psychology and neurology, Glucklich examines the idea that pain, utilized effectively, has the potential to transform suffering into a positive religious experience. Drawing heavily on the work of William James, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, and a broad platform of other theorists, he challenges the medical concept of pain as pathology and instead proposes a multi-faceted model that includes juridical, medical, magical, and psycho-tropic filters through which pain can be effectively and productively processed.
The author is clearly intrigued by the problem of pain and this creates a book that is, paradoxically, at once both insightful and limited in its approach. His emphasis is primarily on pain as an embodied experience, one uniting physical and emotional, cultural and social modes of affect. Glucklich consistently returns to the inherently physical nature of pain, continually redefining his questions to ferret out the effect of consciously applied pain on the self, personal identity, and religious life.
He begins his analysis by breaking the current theories of pain into four broad categories: theological (or normative), critical, descriptive and reductive. (Glucklich: 31), which he then chooses to dissect, pointing out the strengths and faults of each. By focusing on pain’s effects, its neurology and psychology, he attempts to avoid reductive criticism that he believes while the most thorough of the four categories, is ultimately ineffective in unpacking the “wealth of pain types being reduced” (Glucklich: 32).
It is here that Glucklich offers a refreshing criticism of Elaine Scarry’s earlier work, The Body in Pain, in which she states that pain is beyond the articulation of language, that it is only the very instruments that cause pain, which give pain its shape and embodied meaning. He points out that her work focused almost exclusively on victims of torture, which is a utilization of pain that is far removed from the work of, as Glucklich notes, the ascetic or mystic. While Glucklich does discuss the Inquisition and its use of torture, he does so (excessively to this author’s mind) specifically to illustrate the relationship between pain and political power. In fact, Glucklich takes the opposite position from Scarry, arguing that pain can have immense psychological, emotional and above all, spiritual meaning for those who consciously inflict it upon themselves as a spiritual discipline.
The primary disciplinary criticism that shapes this book is that of psychoanalytic theory. Freud figures prominently in his analysis, though he does not agree with what he describes as Freud’s view of pain as “monolithic and intrinsically aversive or punitive” (Glucklich: 87). Instead, he often uses Freudian theory as a theoretical springboard into his own examination of pain through the lens of biochemistry. In fact, Glucklich’s primary window into the nature of pain is through the field of psychoanalysis, behavioral studies, and pure biological science.
His is a phenomenological study of pain and the symbols, metaphors and ritual surrounding its application. He painstakingly examines the contributions of Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, Heinz Kohut, to name but a few of the psychological theorists whose work forms the crux of his arguments. His evaluative discourse spans the gamut of cases, from the medieval mystic engaging in body-punishing ascetic techniques to the teen age girl, a product of modernity, who cuts herself with razors to process her inner turmoil. Glucklich utilizes modern neurology and biochemistry to understand how pain changes the body, and what effect these changes might have on the mind, emotions, and personality – the psychological matrix—of the person suffering.
Essentially, he posits that when a person is being physically hurt in a sustained way, the first thing that happens is raw pain, and usually a good deal of it. It takes some time for that to change. Which chemicals eventually engage, and how much of these chemicals the body produces, varies depending on each individual’s biochemistry and, surprisingly, the attention they focus on their hurt as well as the purpose they ascribe to it.
Ongoing, noticeable pain can affect one’s concentration and one’s attention to such a degree that it causes the body to release painkillers that will work to mitigate the pain. The major factor in this physiological process is the release of opiate-like endorphins, but this is by no means the only factor. Lesser chemicals calm, soothe, and create a certain amount of mild hallucinations. At this point, the subject might still technically be in pain, but they simply may not care nearly as much. Glucklich also painstakingly discusses the various spiritual meanings that those in pain often ascribe to their condition, even or perhaps most especially, when the pain is beyond their control (for instance, he points to Therese of Lisieux finding meaning her physical frailness and illness by sacrificing that pain in imitatio of her deity).
Unfortunately, while the author acknowledges that pain can be an important spiritual tool, his extensive focus on the neurological effects of pain to the exclusion of the particularities of its actual practice in the end, leaves the reader with a theory of pain that is, in its own way, as equally reductive as the theories Glucklich wishes to challenge. He never really moves beyond the physicality of pain and its biochemistry to delve into the viscera of its modern day usage as a sacred tool. While he does quote extensive accounts of pain in its conscious application, many of these accounts are second hand, or drawn from saints’ hagiographies, a point that I shall return to below. The one exception to this is the Native American Sun Dance, which is explored at some length with at least one modern practitioner’s experience as a Sun-dancer being quoted, but Glucklich doesn’t really move beyond the minutiae of the embodiment of pain, i. e. the practices that evoke it and the gestures it evokes, into its spiritual meaning.
He spends an excessive amount of time wrestling with the idea that pain can be “good” when the overall thesis of his book would be better served by a concerted study of the positive results of its use. While he does delve briefly into the ‘good’ pain that an athlete might experience or the way in which a soldier might process pain on the battlefield, his preoccupation with the biochemistry of pain leaves the reader lacking a personal voice and insight into its use (Glucklich: 88). While he does consciously recognize that pain can be used as a valuable spiritual tool, he dances around the psychological reality of pain as a transformative tool, remaining caught up in the inherent difficult that, essentially, pain hurts while at the same time, trying to convince his readers that despite this, it can be useful (Glucklich: 43).
Additionally, despite Glucklich’s criticism of Freudian theory, his overall argument is somewhat weakened by his subtle yet consistent conflating of the use of pain as a spiritual tool with psychological masochism. While he doesn’t pathologize masochism, this categorization colors his approach to the utilization of pain in a sacred context, perhaps contributing to some of the issues noted above.
I believe that the arguments rendered in Sacred Pain could have been immeasurably strengthened by the addition of interviews and first person accounts gleaned from modern practitioners of pain based spirituality. There is a growing sub-culture in both the occult community and, more importantly for the purpose of this review, various Neo-Paganisms in which pain has regained its position as a tool of the sacred. Termed ‘ordeal work’ by those who utilize pain and its ritual application in this manner, certain (albeit fringe) groups within Neo-Pagan and, to some extent, Reconstructionist Pagan religions are consciously adapting techniques as divergent as fasting, flogging, ritual cutting, branding, scarification, hook suspensions, and painful and often violent ordeals as part of their spiritual practices with the often stated goal of making themselves more receptive to their Gods. Published through Asphodel Press, the year 2005 even saw the first publication of a book of collected essays on Paganism and ordeal work titled Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path.
While still not commonly accepted by the majority of Pagans, this sub-culture is growing and in doing so, impacting the evolution of this body of religions as a whole. Similar practices exist in other living traditions too, such as Hinduism where we have pain based offering rituals like Kavadi. Glucklich mentions this ritual, but doesn’t seek out actual practitioners; in fact, Sacred Pain focuses almost exclusively on Western religious traditions. Furthermore, the use of pain in mainstream religions like Christianity, particularly Catholicism has never ceased. In places like Spain and Latin America, one might even say it is flourishing as evidenced by practices such as crawling to religious shrines over long distances on one’s knees, or re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion complete with nails, or the processions of flagellants that can be seen at certain sacred feast days in Spain. Glucklich need not have turned to the Neo-Pagan community. His work remains solely in the realm of the theoretical when it could have been strengthened by incorporating material that would have added an equally extensive grounding in the practical. This, to my mind, is the primary weakness of Sacred Pain: it reads as though the use of pain in the context of spirituality is a thing of the past, when in reality, it has in no way been lost, even if the overall context has been altered by modernity.
Where Glucklich truly shines is in his evaluation of the effect the rise of the medical profession and the discovery of anesthetics had on Western culture’s approach to pain. He specifically notes that the pain is strictly a problem of modernity:
"With the invention of anesthetics pain became strictly a medical problem and a matter that pertains to the body rather than the entire person. The individual in pain evolved into a patient…this replaced the pre-modern person in pain, who was first and foremost a member of a true community, and whose pain meant something far more significant than tissue damage (Glucklich: 177)."
While acknowledging the achievements of nineteenth century medicine in putting an end to what he terms the ‘gruesome and frightful aspects of pre-modern healing,’ Glucklich at the same time credits the rise of both the medical profession as a whole and its use of anesthetics in general with reducing pain from a spiritual discipline to pathology, thus placing the conscious embodiment of pain firmly within its historical context (ibid).
This chapter offers a fascinating study of the medical, ethical, and at times theological arguments that followed the introduction of anesthetics into general use. This wide distribution of anesthetics allowed the average person a conscious choice in whether or not to suffer pain during medical procedures and illness. A psychology of pain quickly followed that categorized anyone choosing to remain in pain rather than avail themselves of the new ‘miracle’ drugs, as abnormal. It was a small leap from abnormal to mentally ill (Glucklich: 195).
By mid-century, as Glucklich notes, there was a deep divide between illness and religion in which “pain had lost its religious connotations” (Glucklich: 196). This coincided with the rise of the medical hysteric and scientific positivism. Essentially as the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment social changes altered the status of religion, it also altered the status of pain. The result has been that Western society as a whole, according to Glucklich, has lost its “capacity to understand why and how pain would be valuable for mystics, members of religious communities, and perhaps humanity as a whole” (Glucklich: 201).
Glucklich offers a theoretical validation of pain that seeks to explain, if not restore, pain to its place as a useful psychological, emotional and above all spiritual tool. His analysis of pain through the tools of psychoanalytic theory, history, and biochemistry is relatively thorough and very thought provoking. While his book fails to take into account the use of pain in contemporary living religious traditions, it does provide a fascinating look at the ways in which pain renders a person vulnerable, has the potential to affect them on a long-term scale emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually as well as the ways in which it has been used throughout the history of religious practice as a tool of transformation.
Sources:
Glucklich, Ariel, (2001). Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Kaldera, Raven, (2005). Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and Ordeal Work. MA: Asphodel Press.
First published in 2001, Ariel Glucklich’s book Sacred Pain seeks to explore the elusive and universal nature of pain and its use, across cultures, as a religious tool. Specifically, Glucklich focuses on one theme: “the effect of ritual pain on consciousness and identity” (Glucklich: 8). By delving into the twin fields of psychology and neurology, Glucklich examines the idea that pain, utilized effectively, has the potential to transform suffering into a positive religious experience. Drawing heavily on the work of William James, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, and a broad platform of other theorists, he challenges the medical concept of pain as pathology and instead proposes a multi-faceted model that includes juridical, medical, magical, and psycho-tropic filters through which pain can be effectively and productively processed.
The author is clearly intrigued by the problem of pain and this creates a book that is, paradoxically, at once both insightful and limited in its approach. His emphasis is primarily on pain as an embodied experience, one uniting physical and emotional, cultural and social modes of affect. Glucklich consistently returns to the inherently physical nature of pain, continually redefining his questions to ferret out the effect of consciously applied pain on the self, personal identity, and religious life.
He begins his analysis by breaking the current theories of pain into four broad categories: theological (or normative), critical, descriptive and reductive. (Glucklich: 31), which he then chooses to dissect, pointing out the strengths and faults of each. By focusing on pain’s effects, its neurology and psychology, he attempts to avoid reductive criticism that he believes while the most thorough of the four categories, is ultimately ineffective in unpacking the “wealth of pain types being reduced” (Glucklich: 32).
It is here that Glucklich offers a refreshing criticism of Elaine Scarry’s earlier work, The Body in Pain, in which she states that pain is beyond the articulation of language, that it is only the very instruments that cause pain, which give pain its shape and embodied meaning. He points out that her work focused almost exclusively on victims of torture, which is a utilization of pain that is far removed from the work of, as Glucklich notes, the ascetic or mystic. While Glucklich does discuss the Inquisition and its use of torture, he does so (excessively to this author’s mind) specifically to illustrate the relationship between pain and political power. In fact, Glucklich takes the opposite position from Scarry, arguing that pain can have immense psychological, emotional and above all, spiritual meaning for those who consciously inflict it upon themselves as a spiritual discipline.
The primary disciplinary criticism that shapes this book is that of psychoanalytic theory. Freud figures prominently in his analysis, though he does not agree with what he describes as Freud’s view of pain as “monolithic and intrinsically aversive or punitive” (Glucklich: 87). Instead, he often uses Freudian theory as a theoretical springboard into his own examination of pain through the lens of biochemistry. In fact, Glucklich’s primary window into the nature of pain is through the field of psychoanalysis, behavioral studies, and pure biological science.
His is a phenomenological study of pain and the symbols, metaphors and ritual surrounding its application. He painstakingly examines the contributions of Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, Heinz Kohut, to name but a few of the psychological theorists whose work forms the crux of his arguments. His evaluative discourse spans the gamut of cases, from the medieval mystic engaging in body-punishing ascetic techniques to the teen age girl, a product of modernity, who cuts herself with razors to process her inner turmoil. Glucklich utilizes modern neurology and biochemistry to understand how pain changes the body, and what effect these changes might have on the mind, emotions, and personality – the psychological matrix—of the person suffering.
Essentially, he posits that when a person is being physically hurt in a sustained way, the first thing that happens is raw pain, and usually a good deal of it. It takes some time for that to change. Which chemicals eventually engage, and how much of these chemicals the body produces, varies depending on each individual’s biochemistry and, surprisingly, the attention they focus on their hurt as well as the purpose they ascribe to it.
Ongoing, noticeable pain can affect one’s concentration and one’s attention to such a degree that it causes the body to release painkillers that will work to mitigate the pain. The major factor in this physiological process is the release of opiate-like endorphins, but this is by no means the only factor. Lesser chemicals calm, soothe, and create a certain amount of mild hallucinations. At this point, the subject might still technically be in pain, but they simply may not care nearly as much. Glucklich also painstakingly discusses the various spiritual meanings that those in pain often ascribe to their condition, even or perhaps most especially, when the pain is beyond their control (for instance, he points to Therese of Lisieux finding meaning her physical frailness and illness by sacrificing that pain in imitatio of her deity).
Unfortunately, while the author acknowledges that pain can be an important spiritual tool, his extensive focus on the neurological effects of pain to the exclusion of the particularities of its actual practice in the end, leaves the reader with a theory of pain that is, in its own way, as equally reductive as the theories Glucklich wishes to challenge. He never really moves beyond the physicality of pain and its biochemistry to delve into the viscera of its modern day usage as a sacred tool. While he does quote extensive accounts of pain in its conscious application, many of these accounts are second hand, or drawn from saints’ hagiographies, a point that I shall return to below. The one exception to this is the Native American Sun Dance, which is explored at some length with at least one modern practitioner’s experience as a Sun-dancer being quoted, but Glucklich doesn’t really move beyond the minutiae of the embodiment of pain, i. e. the practices that evoke it and the gestures it evokes, into its spiritual meaning.
He spends an excessive amount of time wrestling with the idea that pain can be “good” when the overall thesis of his book would be better served by a concerted study of the positive results of its use. While he does delve briefly into the ‘good’ pain that an athlete might experience or the way in which a soldier might process pain on the battlefield, his preoccupation with the biochemistry of pain leaves the reader lacking a personal voice and insight into its use (Glucklich: 88). While he does consciously recognize that pain can be used as a valuable spiritual tool, he dances around the psychological reality of pain as a transformative tool, remaining caught up in the inherent difficult that, essentially, pain hurts while at the same time, trying to convince his readers that despite this, it can be useful (Glucklich: 43).
Additionally, despite Glucklich’s criticism of Freudian theory, his overall argument is somewhat weakened by his subtle yet consistent conflating of the use of pain as a spiritual tool with psychological masochism. While he doesn’t pathologize masochism, this categorization colors his approach to the utilization of pain in a sacred context, perhaps contributing to some of the issues noted above.
I believe that the arguments rendered in Sacred Pain could have been immeasurably strengthened by the addition of interviews and first person accounts gleaned from modern practitioners of pain based spirituality. There is a growing sub-culture in both the occult community and, more importantly for the purpose of this review, various Neo-Paganisms in which pain has regained its position as a tool of the sacred. Termed ‘ordeal work’ by those who utilize pain and its ritual application in this manner, certain (albeit fringe) groups within Neo-Pagan and, to some extent, Reconstructionist Pagan religions are consciously adapting techniques as divergent as fasting, flogging, ritual cutting, branding, scarification, hook suspensions, and painful and often violent ordeals as part of their spiritual practices with the often stated goal of making themselves more receptive to their Gods. Published through Asphodel Press, the year 2005 even saw the first publication of a book of collected essays on Paganism and ordeal work titled Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path.
While still not commonly accepted by the majority of Pagans, this sub-culture is growing and in doing so, impacting the evolution of this body of religions as a whole. Similar practices exist in other living traditions too, such as Hinduism where we have pain based offering rituals like Kavadi. Glucklich mentions this ritual, but doesn’t seek out actual practitioners; in fact, Sacred Pain focuses almost exclusively on Western religious traditions. Furthermore, the use of pain in mainstream religions like Christianity, particularly Catholicism has never ceased. In places like Spain and Latin America, one might even say it is flourishing as evidenced by practices such as crawling to religious shrines over long distances on one’s knees, or re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion complete with nails, or the processions of flagellants that can be seen at certain sacred feast days in Spain. Glucklich need not have turned to the Neo-Pagan community. His work remains solely in the realm of the theoretical when it could have been strengthened by incorporating material that would have added an equally extensive grounding in the practical. This, to my mind, is the primary weakness of Sacred Pain: it reads as though the use of pain in the context of spirituality is a thing of the past, when in reality, it has in no way been lost, even if the overall context has been altered by modernity.
Where Glucklich truly shines is in his evaluation of the effect the rise of the medical profession and the discovery of anesthetics had on Western culture’s approach to pain. He specifically notes that the pain is strictly a problem of modernity:
"With the invention of anesthetics pain became strictly a medical problem and a matter that pertains to the body rather than the entire person. The individual in pain evolved into a patient…this replaced the pre-modern person in pain, who was first and foremost a member of a true community, and whose pain meant something far more significant than tissue damage (Glucklich: 177)."
While acknowledging the achievements of nineteenth century medicine in putting an end to what he terms the ‘gruesome and frightful aspects of pre-modern healing,’ Glucklich at the same time credits the rise of both the medical profession as a whole and its use of anesthetics in general with reducing pain from a spiritual discipline to pathology, thus placing the conscious embodiment of pain firmly within its historical context (ibid).
This chapter offers a fascinating study of the medical, ethical, and at times theological arguments that followed the introduction of anesthetics into general use. This wide distribution of anesthetics allowed the average person a conscious choice in whether or not to suffer pain during medical procedures and illness. A psychology of pain quickly followed that categorized anyone choosing to remain in pain rather than avail themselves of the new ‘miracle’ drugs, as abnormal. It was a small leap from abnormal to mentally ill (Glucklich: 195).
By mid-century, as Glucklich notes, there was a deep divide between illness and religion in which “pain had lost its religious connotations” (Glucklich: 196). This coincided with the rise of the medical hysteric and scientific positivism. Essentially as the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment social changes altered the status of religion, it also altered the status of pain. The result has been that Western society as a whole, according to Glucklich, has lost its “capacity to understand why and how pain would be valuable for mystics, members of religious communities, and perhaps humanity as a whole” (Glucklich: 201).
Glucklich offers a theoretical validation of pain that seeks to explain, if not restore, pain to its place as a useful psychological, emotional and above all spiritual tool. His analysis of pain through the tools of psychoanalytic theory, history, and biochemistry is relatively thorough and very thought provoking. While his book fails to take into account the use of pain in contemporary living religious traditions, it does provide a fascinating look at the ways in which pain renders a person vulnerable, has the potential to affect them on a long-term scale emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually as well as the ways in which it has been used throughout the history of religious practice as a tool of transformation.
Sources:
Glucklich, Ariel, (2001). Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.
Kaldera, Raven, (2005). Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and Ordeal Work. MA: Asphodel Press.
Serving Odin-the Sixth Ordeal: Jotunheim
by G. Krasskova
This account is going to be short and sweet, partly to protect a colleague’s privacy and partly because of all the ordeals I underwent as part of this cycle, it was Jotunheim that came the closest to breaking me. And you know what? No one laid a finger on me. I met the Mother of Monsters and She was kind. Her kindness is a terrible thing. I didn’t write about this ordeal at the time. I couldn’t. I was too raw.
This ordeal was all about pride and humility and owning my own heart. It was about giri, that terrible moment when the needs of duty and the desires of the heart conflict. Duty wins every time for people like us, but oh, it hurts. It was about knowing oneself; it was about personal integrity. Angurboda told me I had too much pride, then She set about breaking it down. I am grateful to Her. She was fair to me, this warrior who had been thrown before Her feet. I am grateful to have been given the blessing of humility and to have been given a glimpse into my own heart. She helped me more than I realized at the time.
Jotunheim was a terrible ordeal for all that Angurboda was kind. It threw me into a deep depression for many weeks afterwards. (I actually went on a taboo-breaking bender for a solid ten days after this ordeal, and it’s the only time in my life I sat down and decided, quite clear-headedly, to get drunk, which I then did.) Essentially, to die, I had to face my greatest fear: love and attraction and the vulnerability these things bring. To die, I had to understand the sacrifice of the heart; there had to be the breaking of my brittle pride. My heart had to be opened to let the Gods in.
Where to even begin…In August Odin made me fall in love with a man, made me hunger for him with a force I could neither ignore nor deny. This man and I were not only colleagues but very good friends, so I did what it was in my warrior nature to do: I concealed and said nothing, hoping only against hope that these things would fade. My colleague W. saw my need in a reading and told me, after the initial shock wore off, that I needed to speak to the man, whom I’ll call X. I had my Jotunheim ordeal coming up in November, and I could not walk cleanly into an ordeal with something like that sitting unresolved between me and X, who was to help with the ordeal. I am a very private person, most especially about my heart. My heart is fragile, more so than I care to admit. It took me another month to sit down with X, and I was physically sick when I had to speak.
I told X and he was horrified: not at my feelings as I’d expected. No, my feelings flattered him. He was horrified because, as he told me later, the moment I started speaking he knew to the bottom of his own heart that Angurboda was going to use it against me in the upcoming ordeal. Because of that, He indicated that we had to wait until after my ordeal to discuss this further, and after he’d been able to do divination before taking any action. (God-owned people can’t just get together. It’s always better to check with our Owners first. The whole idea that “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” really doesn’t work with us). I learned later that he immediately went to his Owner asking if we could get together. She told him gently that “he couldn’t afford my bride-price.” He also asked Angurboda, my next divine ordeal master, and She flat out said “No.” No negotiation. No argument. Just: no. She and Odin are often at odds. I belonged to Odin. I was Odin’s valkyrie. Odin has a powerful line into me and can always look through my eyes if He wishes. What better time to strike at one dear to Angurboda than in the intimacy of sex? We both knew that if Odin asked it of me, I’d do that without hesitation. It is the way of a valkyrie. So, She flat out forbade it. Still, I wasn’t permitted to know that until the day of my ordeal.
In November my ordeal came and I met Angurboda, who possessed a human horse in order to speak to me. She came into her vessel with the sound of breaking glass – the large vase of thistles we had placed on her altar was abruptly swept away and smashed to pieces by a sudden wind. It echoed up the path upon which I was walking, my stomach lurched, and I knew, I knew She was there. I walked down to meet Her, offerings of whiskey and weapons in my hands. She had ordered X to buy a sword for me, a replica of Eowyn’s sword from that Tolkien book. She said the symbolism of that particular weapon was fitting. I, not being a Tolkien fan, didn’t realize how fitting until well after the ordeal (when a friend who is obsessed with Tolkien explained Eowyn’s tale).
She had me kneel before Her (actually, that’s what my body did. It’s not like I had much of a choice with Her presence being what it is). She took the alcohol that was offered (Jack Daniels) and drank that. (This always amazes me with possession. The horse being possessed always had a bad reaction to alcohol, yet the Goddess could drink with impunity. I have seen such things multiple times and it never ceases to amaze me.)
She said that we were going to speak about the three deepest pains of my heart.
First, She began speaking about my adopted mother’s poor health and impending death, forcing me to cry, forcing me to acknowledge how that was tearing me up inside. I’d been compartmentalizing it like my warrior training had taught, pushing away the pain, focusing on necessary action. She made me acknowledge the bond I have with my adopted mom and how her death would affect me. She said that I needed to be prepared because were I to lose myself to grief, I would be desecrating all the gifts my adopted mom had given me.
Then she talked about my desire for a community, a tribe. She said I had a tribe in the love my adopted mother had for me; and that I had a tribe with those colleagues and friends who had accepted me in this work. I would never have a tribe such as I sought to replicate through Theodism. I walk the Wanderer’s path. I will not ever fully belong anywhere. Strangely, shortly before this ordeal, this one issue, which had long eaten away at me, ceased to be an issue. I’m not sure why but something changed in me and I realized that I am not meant to have such a tribal binding in this lifetime. So that was well on its way to being resolved when She brought it up, but it took Her talking to me about it for me to realize that I’d found a measure of peace with the whole thing. Then, She talked about X.
She told me to give Her the sword, which I did. She did not demand physical ordeal…in that, I was later told, She honored me as a warrior. She laid the sword down between us and told me to choose. I had two paths open to me: I could be X’s friend, servant, colleague, etc. but never, ever, lover; or I could leave this place and never return, never having any contact with him again whatsoever. Now, Odin had me working with X for a reason. We had mutual work to accomplish, so by doing that I would be turning my back on my duty. Also, he was a very good friend to me and didn’t deserve to be tossed to the side like that. Angurboda also subtly implied that to do so would be cowardice, even though only She and I would ever know. I could pick up the sword and do my duty or turn my back on it, leaving the blade where it lay.
I walk the warrior’s path. Such symbolism is deeply embedded in my very core. There was nothing more potent that She could have done to drive home the point of this ordeal. She said, before starting, that I had too much pride. That pride, which protected my heart, was getting in the way of my opening to Odin. It was getting in the way of the Work He needed me to do. It had to go.
When I’d made my choice, obviously taking up the sword, She had me smash the large broken vase further by Odin’s god-post, to “show Him what the Hag of the Ironwood has done to His Valkyrie’s dreams.” Then She had me wrap the sword in a huge bundle of thistles, tying it with hand-spun red thread. She said that as a valkyrie, my love would always be like that. My job was to pick the thread free of all the thistles and re-spin it into something whole. I must clean it and remake what is broken. She’s right too: it didn’t hit me until months later, but that visual image of the sword wrapped in thistles and blood-red thread is the perfect metaphor for my heart. I’m a fairly simple person: sometimes I need the stark visual metaphors.
She then suggested that it would benefit me greatly to enter into a non-sexual service contract for a year and a day with X. I did this (it expired this past February) and I learned something that all my years in Theodism hadn’t taught: I am not meant to be in service to anyone but Odin. What I thought was necessary to my make-up, what I thought I desired above all others, was not something I found myself wanting or needing in this life. I had been a bound warrior lifetime after lifetime. This time, I was working on the other side of that: I was ronin, bound only to Odin. There was something immensely freeing, immensely cleansing and healing in that epiphany. I worked out my time in service and chose not to renew the contract. I learned that in this life, I am not meant to be owned by any man. It purified my heart (by breaking and remaking it). Now there is nothing in that heart that does not belong to Odin.
(I received permission from all relevant parties before posting this. No one’s privacy was compromised).
This account is going to be short and sweet, partly to protect a colleague’s privacy and partly because of all the ordeals I underwent as part of this cycle, it was Jotunheim that came the closest to breaking me. And you know what? No one laid a finger on me. I met the Mother of Monsters and She was kind. Her kindness is a terrible thing. I didn’t write about this ordeal at the time. I couldn’t. I was too raw.
This ordeal was all about pride and humility and owning my own heart. It was about giri, that terrible moment when the needs of duty and the desires of the heart conflict. Duty wins every time for people like us, but oh, it hurts. It was about knowing oneself; it was about personal integrity. Angurboda told me I had too much pride, then She set about breaking it down. I am grateful to Her. She was fair to me, this warrior who had been thrown before Her feet. I am grateful to have been given the blessing of humility and to have been given a glimpse into my own heart. She helped me more than I realized at the time.
Jotunheim was a terrible ordeal for all that Angurboda was kind. It threw me into a deep depression for many weeks afterwards. (I actually went on a taboo-breaking bender for a solid ten days after this ordeal, and it’s the only time in my life I sat down and decided, quite clear-headedly, to get drunk, which I then did.) Essentially, to die, I had to face my greatest fear: love and attraction and the vulnerability these things bring. To die, I had to understand the sacrifice of the heart; there had to be the breaking of my brittle pride. My heart had to be opened to let the Gods in.
Where to even begin…In August Odin made me fall in love with a man, made me hunger for him with a force I could neither ignore nor deny. This man and I were not only colleagues but very good friends, so I did what it was in my warrior nature to do: I concealed and said nothing, hoping only against hope that these things would fade. My colleague W. saw my need in a reading and told me, after the initial shock wore off, that I needed to speak to the man, whom I’ll call X. I had my Jotunheim ordeal coming up in November, and I could not walk cleanly into an ordeal with something like that sitting unresolved between me and X, who was to help with the ordeal. I am a very private person, most especially about my heart. My heart is fragile, more so than I care to admit. It took me another month to sit down with X, and I was physically sick when I had to speak.
I told X and he was horrified: not at my feelings as I’d expected. No, my feelings flattered him. He was horrified because, as he told me later, the moment I started speaking he knew to the bottom of his own heart that Angurboda was going to use it against me in the upcoming ordeal. Because of that, He indicated that we had to wait until after my ordeal to discuss this further, and after he’d been able to do divination before taking any action. (God-owned people can’t just get together. It’s always better to check with our Owners first. The whole idea that “it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission” really doesn’t work with us). I learned later that he immediately went to his Owner asking if we could get together. She told him gently that “he couldn’t afford my bride-price.” He also asked Angurboda, my next divine ordeal master, and She flat out said “No.” No negotiation. No argument. Just: no. She and Odin are often at odds. I belonged to Odin. I was Odin’s valkyrie. Odin has a powerful line into me and can always look through my eyes if He wishes. What better time to strike at one dear to Angurboda than in the intimacy of sex? We both knew that if Odin asked it of me, I’d do that without hesitation. It is the way of a valkyrie. So, She flat out forbade it. Still, I wasn’t permitted to know that until the day of my ordeal.
In November my ordeal came and I met Angurboda, who possessed a human horse in order to speak to me. She came into her vessel with the sound of breaking glass – the large vase of thistles we had placed on her altar was abruptly swept away and smashed to pieces by a sudden wind. It echoed up the path upon which I was walking, my stomach lurched, and I knew, I knew She was there. I walked down to meet Her, offerings of whiskey and weapons in my hands. She had ordered X to buy a sword for me, a replica of Eowyn’s sword from that Tolkien book. She said the symbolism of that particular weapon was fitting. I, not being a Tolkien fan, didn’t realize how fitting until well after the ordeal (when a friend who is obsessed with Tolkien explained Eowyn’s tale).
She had me kneel before Her (actually, that’s what my body did. It’s not like I had much of a choice with Her presence being what it is). She took the alcohol that was offered (Jack Daniels) and drank that. (This always amazes me with possession. The horse being possessed always had a bad reaction to alcohol, yet the Goddess could drink with impunity. I have seen such things multiple times and it never ceases to amaze me.)
She said that we were going to speak about the three deepest pains of my heart.
First, She began speaking about my adopted mother’s poor health and impending death, forcing me to cry, forcing me to acknowledge how that was tearing me up inside. I’d been compartmentalizing it like my warrior training had taught, pushing away the pain, focusing on necessary action. She made me acknowledge the bond I have with my adopted mom and how her death would affect me. She said that I needed to be prepared because were I to lose myself to grief, I would be desecrating all the gifts my adopted mom had given me.
Then she talked about my desire for a community, a tribe. She said I had a tribe in the love my adopted mother had for me; and that I had a tribe with those colleagues and friends who had accepted me in this work. I would never have a tribe such as I sought to replicate through Theodism. I walk the Wanderer’s path. I will not ever fully belong anywhere. Strangely, shortly before this ordeal, this one issue, which had long eaten away at me, ceased to be an issue. I’m not sure why but something changed in me and I realized that I am not meant to have such a tribal binding in this lifetime. So that was well on its way to being resolved when She brought it up, but it took Her talking to me about it for me to realize that I’d found a measure of peace with the whole thing. Then, She talked about X.
She told me to give Her the sword, which I did. She did not demand physical ordeal…in that, I was later told, She honored me as a warrior. She laid the sword down between us and told me to choose. I had two paths open to me: I could be X’s friend, servant, colleague, etc. but never, ever, lover; or I could leave this place and never return, never having any contact with him again whatsoever. Now, Odin had me working with X for a reason. We had mutual work to accomplish, so by doing that I would be turning my back on my duty. Also, he was a very good friend to me and didn’t deserve to be tossed to the side like that. Angurboda also subtly implied that to do so would be cowardice, even though only She and I would ever know. I could pick up the sword and do my duty or turn my back on it, leaving the blade where it lay.
I walk the warrior’s path. Such symbolism is deeply embedded in my very core. There was nothing more potent that She could have done to drive home the point of this ordeal. She said, before starting, that I had too much pride. That pride, which protected my heart, was getting in the way of my opening to Odin. It was getting in the way of the Work He needed me to do. It had to go.
When I’d made my choice, obviously taking up the sword, She had me smash the large broken vase further by Odin’s god-post, to “show Him what the Hag of the Ironwood has done to His Valkyrie’s dreams.” Then She had me wrap the sword in a huge bundle of thistles, tying it with hand-spun red thread. She said that as a valkyrie, my love would always be like that. My job was to pick the thread free of all the thistles and re-spin it into something whole. I must clean it and remake what is broken. She’s right too: it didn’t hit me until months later, but that visual image of the sword wrapped in thistles and blood-red thread is the perfect metaphor for my heart. I’m a fairly simple person: sometimes I need the stark visual metaphors.
She then suggested that it would benefit me greatly to enter into a non-sexual service contract for a year and a day with X. I did this (it expired this past February) and I learned something that all my years in Theodism hadn’t taught: I am not meant to be in service to anyone but Odin. What I thought was necessary to my make-up, what I thought I desired above all others, was not something I found myself wanting or needing in this life. I had been a bound warrior lifetime after lifetime. This time, I was working on the other side of that: I was ronin, bound only to Odin. There was something immensely freeing, immensely cleansing and healing in that epiphany. I worked out my time in service and chose not to renew the contract. I learned that in this life, I am not meant to be owned by any man. It purified my heart (by breaking and remaking it). Now there is nothing in that heart that does not belong to Odin.
(I received permission from all relevant parties before posting this. No one’s privacy was compromised).
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Drawing Down the Spirits - A Book Review
By G. Krasskova
A new book has just been released that I believe will prove to be of great importance to spiritworkers and shamans. It’s called “Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession” and it explores techniques of spirit and Divine possession across the Neo-Pagan, Heathen, and Afro-Caribbean spectrum. The authors, Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera, both have extensive experience dealing with Deity possession and they have collected a wealth of information, drawing on other experienced practitioners both within their respective communities and from other branches of modern Paganisms as well.
This book offers an extensive examination of the role of possessory work within modern Paganisms, beginning with a history of possession across the world and throughout history. Particular attention is paid to the 20th century and the rise of spiritualism, Edgar Cayce, and theosophy. While not the focus of the book, it does provide interesting historical and social context, particularly relevant since these latter movements formed the soil from which many modern Paganisms sprang. The real meat of the work begins in part II. The authors, in conjunction with the many shamans and spiritworkers interviewed, all of whom are ‘horses,’ (people wired to allow Deity possession) explore the dynamic of possession from the inside out. Many of the columnists of “Godsmouths” are quoted throughout the book, including our esteemed editor.
The reader is introduced to the way possession works: what exactly happens to the ‘horse’ when the God or Goddess comes in? What are the levels of possession? What are the possible negative side effects on the body of the practitioner and on the community of these practices? What are the benefits? What is the appropriate protocol to follow when a Deity is present? What are the obligations of community, horse, and handlers? All of these questions and more are explored extensively. The authors talk about how this is happening, what people can expect, and how to integrate these powerful practices into the community as a whole. Concrete information is interspersed with personal accounts throughout the book creating a powerful, diverse, richly faceted narrative.
In my opinion, this is one of the most important books to come out in the last few years with the Pagan and Heathen communities. Deity possession is happening and it is extraordinarily controversial across denominational divides. While there have been numerous academic texts concerning possession (ranging from tepid to infuriating), to date, this is the first book written by practitioners for both practitioners and the communities in which they work. It’s beautifully written and very accessible. If you’ll pardon the terrible pun, which I just can’t seem to resist right now, you actually get to read about how it’s done, why it’s done, and what it’s like….straight from the ‘horses’ mouths.” (Yes, I know.)
While I don’t agree with everything written (I don’t, for instance, see what the issue is with cross gender possessions. It happens. It’s not that rare though the authors spend what to me seems an inordinate amount of time examining the dynamics of cross gender possession), for the most part, I think this is an invaluable book for anyone actively involved in Paganisms or Heathenry. Even if you do not horse, have no desire to horse, have never seen a possession, and don’t want to see one, “Drawing Down the Spirits” (originally titled “Wild Horses” but changed by the publisher, unfortunately to something more ‘academic’) is still a fascinating examination of a growing devotional phenomenon within a broad, diverse, and complex spectrum of polytheistic religions. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The book is currently available from amazon.com as well as major retailers:
Drawing Down the Spirits
By Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera
Published by Destiny Books
ISBN: 978-159477269-6
(cross-posted at The Gods' Mouths).
A new book has just been released that I believe will prove to be of great importance to spiritworkers and shamans. It’s called “Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession” and it explores techniques of spirit and Divine possession across the Neo-Pagan, Heathen, and Afro-Caribbean spectrum. The authors, Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera, both have extensive experience dealing with Deity possession and they have collected a wealth of information, drawing on other experienced practitioners both within their respective communities and from other branches of modern Paganisms as well.
This book offers an extensive examination of the role of possessory work within modern Paganisms, beginning with a history of possession across the world and throughout history. Particular attention is paid to the 20th century and the rise of spiritualism, Edgar Cayce, and theosophy. While not the focus of the book, it does provide interesting historical and social context, particularly relevant since these latter movements formed the soil from which many modern Paganisms sprang. The real meat of the work begins in part II. The authors, in conjunction with the many shamans and spiritworkers interviewed, all of whom are ‘horses,’ (people wired to allow Deity possession) explore the dynamic of possession from the inside out. Many of the columnists of “Godsmouths” are quoted throughout the book, including our esteemed editor.
The reader is introduced to the way possession works: what exactly happens to the ‘horse’ when the God or Goddess comes in? What are the levels of possession? What are the possible negative side effects on the body of the practitioner and on the community of these practices? What are the benefits? What is the appropriate protocol to follow when a Deity is present? What are the obligations of community, horse, and handlers? All of these questions and more are explored extensively. The authors talk about how this is happening, what people can expect, and how to integrate these powerful practices into the community as a whole. Concrete information is interspersed with personal accounts throughout the book creating a powerful, diverse, richly faceted narrative.
In my opinion, this is one of the most important books to come out in the last few years with the Pagan and Heathen communities. Deity possession is happening and it is extraordinarily controversial across denominational divides. While there have been numerous academic texts concerning possession (ranging from tepid to infuriating), to date, this is the first book written by practitioners for both practitioners and the communities in which they work. It’s beautifully written and very accessible. If you’ll pardon the terrible pun, which I just can’t seem to resist right now, you actually get to read about how it’s done, why it’s done, and what it’s like….straight from the ‘horses’ mouths.” (Yes, I know.)
While I don’t agree with everything written (I don’t, for instance, see what the issue is with cross gender possessions. It happens. It’s not that rare though the authors spend what to me seems an inordinate amount of time examining the dynamics of cross gender possession), for the most part, I think this is an invaluable book for anyone actively involved in Paganisms or Heathenry. Even if you do not horse, have no desire to horse, have never seen a possession, and don’t want to see one, “Drawing Down the Spirits” (originally titled “Wild Horses” but changed by the publisher, unfortunately to something more ‘academic’) is still a fascinating examination of a growing devotional phenomenon within a broad, diverse, and complex spectrum of polytheistic religions. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The book is currently available from amazon.com as well as major retailers:
Drawing Down the Spirits
By Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera
Published by Destiny Books
ISBN: 978-159477269-6
(cross-posted at The Gods' Mouths).
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Serving Odin - the Fifth Ordeal: Midgard
by G. Krasskova
This was the strangest ordeal. Most people, I suspect, wouldn’t even consider it an ordeal but for me, it forced me to embrace, accept and begin to heal all of my body issues. My Midgard ordeal was all about embodiment. It was about learning to accept my physicality, my body, the form and shape of my body, it’s blessings and its limitations. It was about learning to stop seeing my body as ‘the enemy’ and instead accepting that I am as Odin made me, exactly as He made me, exactly as He wanted me. It was about learning to love those connections that bound me to life, to see beauty, and maybe even joy in Midgard.
I had never loved life. For as long as I can remember, it had been a grim, painful struggle for me, something to be endured for the sake of duty. The more my Work pulled me away from Midgard existence, separated me from those things that the average person holds dear, the more resentful of that existence I became, and always, there was a soul-crushing weariness, and for a very long time, poverty. Add to that the fact that I detested my body…I had been a professional ballet dancer and my body broke very early on. I hated it for that, for not having the wherewithal to hold out, to mold itself to the look required. I hated it for having so many injuries, for not being beautiful or (so I thought) even pretty, for being awkward and ugly. I hated it for being in severe pain almost all the time. Mostly, I just hated it.
This had been a huge struggle for me since I was a young woman. It remains a struggle, I’ll admit, but thanks to my Midgard ordeal huge headway was made, some of the worst of the bitter pain chipped away. I began to love and appreciate life with this ordeal. Through my Midgard ordeal, I learned not only that there could be joy in embodiment, pleasure, but also that there was nothing wrong with that. This was also the time when Odin started teaching me about navigating Midgard more efficiently, using the tools of Midgard: dress, presentation, appearance, protocol to make myself “fit in.” This was something that up to this point I’d never learned to do. It’s one thing to be an outsider by virtue of one’s job/vocation as shaman; it’s another to feel alienated from the very humanity of which you are (more or less) part by virtue of your own clumsiness with social markers. I’d had such distaste for the trappings of femininity. To me they bespoke weakness, vanity and I’ll admit there was something deep seated in me that said “why bother? Putting make-up and pretty clothing on you is about as useful as putting ribbons on a jackass.” My Midgard ordeal slowly but surely began to undo all of these knots. It “civilized” me. It transformed my relationship to me and it allowed me to fall in love with living, with life, and the wonderful ups and downs that it brings. I love life now. I never, ever thought I would say that! I’m having a wonderful time, I enjoy who I am. This was my greatest and most unexpected gift from Midgard.
As ordeals go, this one wasn’t bad. In fact, for most women I suppose it wouldn’t have been an ordeal at all. A colleague, G. facilitated this ordeal. She is, in addition to being a spirit-worker, a gifted massage therapist with a keen sense of aesthetics. For her, these things combined in sacred work: restoring to women a sense of their own innate beauty. She had been pushed to offer to facilitate and on the urging of my fire-teacher, I accepted. About a week after my Muspelheim ordeal, I journeyed to MA to meet with her. The ordeal was expected to take three days and would involve remarkable amount of pampering. (As I said earlier, not all ordeals involve physical pain). The purpose of this, and why it was, for me, an ordeal: I would have to confront each and every one of my body issues, my distaste for the flesh, and my issues with femininity directly. The form of the ordeal might be gentle, but the issues it was sure to raise would be anything but.
The first day G. stood me before her full length mirror. She made me look at myself in the eyes, she would not allow me to turn away. I have only the smallest of mirrors in my home (a mirror over my sink). I avoid mirrors as a matter of course. I avoid looking at myself in them. I don’t much like them. They make me hurt. G. stood me before that mirror, one that was her primary magical ally, an ensorcelled tool. She talked to me about mirror magic: how one must guard what one says in front of a mirror, lest we create that spoken reality for ourselves. That mirrors, more than doorways, are realms of manifestation. That one can stand before a mirror, create a glamour and step into it before walking out to meet the world. What I had long dismissed as nothing more than a symbol of excessive female vanity suddenly became very interesting as a magical tool. Then, she allowed the words of my Husband, of Odin to come through her and spoke about how He saw me, and my beauty, and my femininity. She spoke about how He valued my strength and how that strength shown forth in my body. She spoke about how He was most pleased with the shape and form of that body. He was pleased with this woman who was a blade, a weapon, a warrior. He would have me no different. This went on for maybe twenty minutes and it reduced me to tears. I still struggle with this but it was at this ordeal that the hard bands of pain around my heart began to ease. Odin had her draw runes in oils and red ochre on me, marking me yet again as His valkyrie, and His bride.
Since Odin wanted to give me the tools to function at a better, more efficient level in the mundane world, to carve a place for myself in that world, G. was tapped to teach me about dress and presentation, including make-up. I’d always had a tremendous distaste for what I defined as feminine frippery, for a number of reasons which anyone knowing my birth family well would understand. It also really highlighted the depth of my ingrained misogyny! Anyway, we spent a couple of hours with her teaching me how to apply professional make up, with her teaching me why this was important, how this could be used to hold and cast a glamour. He wanted me to look at these tools: dress, make up, courtesies, as war paint, as weapons and tools that would enable me to move cleanly amongst a greater variety of people working His will. G. helped me give up the great bitterness and sense of awkward clumsiness that I had with even the idea of engaging in this process. It was at my Midgard ordeal that I gained some semblance of Midgard “drag,” the ability to pass in the professional world of Midgard. I gained those skills and at the same time sacrificed the distaste that I’d had for them. This ordeal helped me hide my monster. Most surprisingly of all, in the months since this ordeal, I've even come to find the entire process (dress, make up, etc.) fun.
The next day began with a sauna, complete with birch leaf bundles for cleansing. Then she wrapped me in healing herbs and oils, and then, I had a long massage while she used her gift of energy healing to start opening up my heart. We had to be careful with my left leg as the brand I’d gotten at Muspelheim was very new, however, it didn’t get in the way that much. With my back and neck injuries, this was an amazing experience and with G.’s healing talents, it left me feeling more comfortable in my body than I ever remember being before. I’d had massages but I rarely permit energy work to be done—it can really mess up shamans and spiritworkers if done by someone who doesn’t understand how we’ve been modified energetically by our Gods. I’d never had one done by a gifted spirit-worker, working under the auspices of my Gods, specifically to open the barred cavern of my heart.
The following day began with a pedicure, more massage, and a lovely lunch at a local Japanese Restaurant. Then we drove to Salem, where a local scent shop created a personal scent for me, one that focused on my role as Odin’s bride. It was sensual…where I am not. It was lush, where I am not. It was delightful. It was all the things that I wish I knew how to show. That, I suspect, was the point. After spending some time in Salem shopping for various herbs, we went clothes shopping as well. G. has great skill as a personal shopper and was able to help me find clothing that flattered my body and made me feel comfortable and professional without being too egregiously feminine, which by nature, I am not. For so long I’d hated anything that had to do with presentation. I avoided clothes shopping partly out of poverty and partly out of body-hatred (I’d been grievously poor for years and only recently was able to even really consider shopping for nice clothes). It affected the way I carried myself. It affected the way I was perceived professionally. It crippled me. Through this ordeal, Odin was giving me a chance not just to undo some of the wounds and hurts, but to learn necessary skills that would enable me to have a professional career in the future. G. helped me to see that I could be in the world, that I wasn’t a freak as a woman. I also learned that making people feel beautiful, and feel comfortable in their skin is sacred work. It’s holy work, the work of a very special type of priestess. I am very respectful of those who engage in such work: massage therapists, those who provide manicures, pedicures, facials, those who work in the beauty industry. In Northern tradition the body is part of the soul matrix and I think that people doing this type of work are essentially helping us to restore part of ourselves, the part that is inevitably the most damaged from the world in which we live.
Anyway, that was it really. It was a weekend of immense pampering but also of learning. I realized that our bodies are our tools, yes, but that it is our duty to keep them in as good a working order as possible. That this is the conduct by which we not only touch the world, but also by which we experience the Divine. This is the conduit through which our Gods can experience the world. Most of all, I experienced for a few brief moments how Odin sees me. One of the most difficult parts of my journey was a period of two years where Odin cut me off from the feel of His presence. I’m an empath. For me, part of my relationship with Him was the constant sense of His feelings for me. When that was suddenly blocked and cut off, it threw me into a deep depression. It was a very close thing to my not being able to climb out and only my sense of duty and the Work (thank the Gods for my military background) kept me going. But it was a miserable, hurtful time. It was necessary, absolutely necessary for reasons I won’t go into here, but it left deep wounds in my heart and soul. (Lest I be accused of saying that Odin is cruel, I will reiterate: this was necessary for me to grow and heal. It was hurtful at the time, but in retrospect, I came to understand His reasons and it forced me to address a lot of old, unresolved pain in ways I never otherwise would have. He gave me an immense gift during that very dark time). My relationship with Odin has only recently been completely restored, those wounds healed, literally recently as of this past month, and the blocking occurred for only a two year period several years ago. This ordeal was the first time that I’d felt Odin’s fingers playing over those terrible scars, soothing them. It began a heart-healing that found its fulfillment first in my Asgard ordeal and then again, quite recently with Him directly.
So that was my Midgard ordeal and it is a good thing that it was kind and pleasant because the next ordeal was anything but.
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