Dancing the Ordeal

I have just posted Part II of my discussion on ordeal work. You can view the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9SkJ6-itQ8

It is not appropriate for minors.

Youtube segment on Ordeal 09/11/2011

I have a new youtube video available. This one deals with the nature of ordeal work. You may find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgycp9e9seA

A warning: it does contain several very graphic images and so should not be viewed by minors.

My Midgard Ordeal 07/05/2011

Guest Post: Excerpt from "Dark Moon Rising' by Raven Kaldera 04/27/2011

On Ordeal

(quoted with permission from Raven Kaldera’s “Dark Moon Rising” published by Asphodel Press, 2006.)

You don’t like us.
We are the black blotch on the colorful rainbow.
We are the sudden shudder as
Bodies are innocently exposed –the rings
Through the flesh, the pictures in the skin,
Perhaps the marks of knives, of razors, of brands.
Perhaps short-lived marks of crimson and purple,
The colors of royalty. But these are worse,
You think, for they are a slap in the face
That this was no souvenir from a decadent youth
Unless that youth ended just last night.

When you said that this was a community where
Anyone could choose to be what they wanted,
Anyone could choose how they would love,
How they would fit their bodies together, you didn’t
Really mean it. You didn’t mean this,
You didn’t mean these choices.
But this is the price of freedom,
Of offering those sacred choices. Sooner or later,
Someone will choose something
That makes your breath stop in your throat,
Your belly turn in fear. You don’t like us,
Or our choices, and if anyone can make you believe
That perhaps choice is not such a good thing,
It might be us.

You don’t like us.
We confuse you. It was taught that those
Who undergo this pain are broken,
Are weakened, damaged…yet we walk tall,
Holding high our heads. We laugh, we joke, we pursue
Each other, we cook and tend gardens
And raise children, just like everyone else.
We stubbornly refuse to hear you when
You tell us how wrong we are; your words
Fall empty before the truth spoken by our flesh.
You would hide your children from our eyes,
Our marks, our tongues, the shadows we move in
And out of. Even if you grudgingly agree
That we are strong.
There is no way that we can pretend to be
Innocent.
Yes, that at least is so.

You hold within yourself the image of evil
Created by the ills of society,
How it looks, how it smells and we
On the surface, seem to be a good match.
We are just close enough to frighten you,
Just far enough away to confuse you,
And you would blot us out rather than struggle
With those contradictions, those ambiguities
That shift the solid ground beneath your feet.

We point to your revered past and laugh,
Showing you hooks in ancient flesh, symbols
Cut with blades of stone, needles of bone,
The sacred plants burnt to ash and rubbed into the blood,
Blood, blood, the altars ran with it and we
Add our own to that ancient scarlet flow. We point to
Woden on the Tree, Inanna stripped and beaten,
Persephone raped, Gullveig three-times burned,
Fenris, Loki, Prometheus chained, the Corn-King
Cut down and threshed and devoured, Shiva’s corpse
Disemboweled by his skull-hung mistress as She
Makes use of His dying member, and all
The other dark hands that did the deeds.
These are our Gods,
We say, and They are your Gods too
Whether you will or no.

That word, “primitive”, we see it differently. No room
For idealized, pretty tales. Our ancestors
Scrambled and crawled across thorns
To survive, to do more than survive, to find these
Crumbs of wisdom that are our inheritance.
And if we think that under our
Smooth exteriors and shining toys we are
Any better, any less flesh that gives way to thorns
Then we are merely blinded fools,
And we deserve the pain unlooked-for
Rather than the ordeal we choose
With open arms, with open heart,
Legs spread wide to take in holy lightening,
Going as to the bridal bed in joy.

For we have bared our throats to the Darkness
And lived to draw the map.

(from the “Conclusion” p. 423-425).

My Muspelheim Ordeal 03/20/2011

The following article first appeared in the online journal “Blood for the Divine.” Over the next few weeks, I will be re-publishing my ordeal articles here, on my own blog. To provide a bit of background, as part of my service to Odin, I was required to undergo nine personal ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds. Those ordeals opened me up and aided me immensely in my work, and in coming into my own as a shaman. The article below recounts, as best as one can given the limitations of the words to capture the depth of the experience, my fourth ordeal within this 9-Worlds’ cycle.

Ordeal is about 2%, if that, of what I do in service to Odin, yet in many ways the wisdom, humility, and knowledge that I gained throughout this 9-ordeal cycle has come to define me as a person, a devotee, a godatheow, and a shaman. These ordeals made me. I grew up through the process of meeting and engaging with them. I learned my measure – where I am weak, where I am strong, and where I fall someplace in between - and that’s a powerful gift. I don’t think that I realized exactly how precious a gift it was until years later.

While I am Odin’s godatheow, I also relate to Him in many other ways. Our relationship is complex and multi-faceted. We are many things to each other He and I, not just Master/godatheow. This particular page of my site, however, is expressly for the discussion of ordeal and therefore, that is the aspect of my relationship with Odin that I shall emphasize here. This should not be taken to imply that everyone must be an ordeal worker to serve Odin. That would not be true at all. This is one way out of thousands to honor Him and if He wants it of a particular devotee, that devotee will know. In the meantime, other aspects of my relationship and interactions with Odin are discussed on my blog, or the Odin’s Ve page. Enjoy.

Serving Odin – the Fourth Ordeal: Muspelheim
By G. Krasskova

This ordeal was painful, exhausting, grueling and absolutely joyous. It gave me back a sense of confidence in my ability to move (something I’d lost when I retired from ballet years ago). It gave me back a rightful pride in the skills that I had worked hard to accomplish (not all pride is bad). It earned me a measure of ‘face’ and a right to seek out further training in fire magic from Surt, Lord of Muspelheim (which has led me to take up the craft of glass-blowing). It taught me then and there that Odin was paying a price in arranging these ordeals for His valkyrie. It gave me back a sense of freedom and joy, things that had long been difficult for me to find in Midgard – especially joy in the Work. That was my biggest gift in this ordeal: I was given joy. This ordeal also restored me to my magic. In very concrete ways, as the saying goes: “I got my mojo back!” Of course, I had to burn for it.

Muspelheim is the Norse world of fire, one of the primal worlds from which all creation sprang. Fire then, is one of our eldest of ancestors and amongst the many lessons that working for/with Surt taught me, is that it deserves to be honored as such. More than life, all existence, creativity and driving momentum came from that cosmic clash, that big bang when Muspelheim and Niflheim collided. As Master of Muspelheim, the God Surt is one of, if not the eldest of beings in the Northern Tradition. He is bestower of fire (and our tradition is one in which mankind never had to steal fire). A few months before this ordeal, Odin had told me to go to Surt and learn the basics of fire magic. Surt had provided a human teacher and I had begun my apprenticeship. My actual Muspelheim ordeal was originally going to take place in May, before I left for six weeks of study in Germany. At the last minute, however, Surt decreed that it had to be in July, at the hottest part of the summer. He also gave very explicit instructions to my team of ordeal masters regarding my ordeal attire.

We decided to hold the ritual the Tuesday before Etinmoot 2007. W. and R. were to be my ordeal masters and I was told to give the entire day – at least—for the ordeal itself. I was told to hydrate myself and eat well the couple days preceding and to make sure to get a good night’s sleep, that this ordeal was going to be extraordinarily grueling on the body. I arrived at the farm fairly early and a little before noon headed down to the field and firepit. First, I was told to strip. I was allowed only to keep my shoes. This was important for me, a mini-ordeal in and of itself. I have a great deal of body-modesty. (It’s almost a running joke with my colleagues because it’s not something that we’re much allowed and in the course of the Work, it’s slowly been chipped away). In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I have more body modesty than any four or five other shamans or spiritworkers combined. It’s just the way I was raised, my own body issues, and an old fashioned sense of propriety. Surt was having none of it. There’s a reason for this: it gets in the way of the Work. Our bodies are our tools. They need to be cared for but not privileged excessively, especially in a way that interferes with what the Gods need to be done. If I need to strip for an ordeal that my Gods have requested, it shouldn’t be a problem. Here is an example of why this might be necessary: the first time I met R. he performed a blood-walking for me. This means, that he performed a rite that allowed him to read my ancestral threads. To do this, at the time, we drove to a cold lake in the middle of October (R., his attendant, me and a friend), R. stripped down and waded into the lake while I stood on the shore and the ritual commenced. Neither one of us thought anything of it. We were in the moment of the Work. It only occurred to us later how odd that might have looked to non shamans or spiritworkers. There can be no hesitation. When the Work demands it, modesty must go. That was a really hard lesson for me.

So once I’d stripped, the two ordeal masters smeared sun tan lotion on my back (necessary pain is one thing, stupidity another) and I was told to make a fire. The first thing one must learn for fire mastery (be it in magic or shamanism) is how to make a fire either with flint and steel, or with hand-bow. I had chosen the former. I set up the logs and quickly got a flame going. W., also a fire-master, looked at me and said “Good. That was faster than I expected. Now blow that out and do it again with more mindfulness.” I did so without argument. It took a bit of time to actually get the bonfire going, but I managed it and that fire was mine to tend and keep going throughout the ordeal. As Surt had requested, I sprinkled cedar, tobacco, and alder on the fire…this combination is blessed by fire. It raises a warrior’s energy, and fire energy. It is beloved of Surt. Then, the clothing that I was to wear during the ordeal was given to me: a crown with multiple rows of barbs running down its back, and what Surt called a ‘cloak of fire,” a neck piece with shoulder pads and then row after row of fire colored beads interspersed with barbs…the kind of barbs used in barbed wire. I was to dance until the fire burned down or Surt gave me leave to stop (I had to go through the three large piles of wood prepared in advance to keep the fire going). Every time I moved, the barbs swung and bit into my flesh.

I began to dance and my body was lacerated as each movement caused auto-flagellation. I swung and swayed and moved as fire bade me. I slipped into a deep trance very early on. Fire has its own rhythms, and like ice, its own voice, what W. once called “the most magical sound in the world.” Every so often, I’d feel gentle hands on me, pouring water over my back, forcing me to drink as W. or R. cared for me, making sure I didn’t dehydrate or burn. It was dizzying and I was too dazed to register most of it. I just kept moving. Within the first hour, the kinetic energy was so strong that it caused several strands of beads and barbs to shatter. By ¾ of the way through, all the strands had broken save for a few, which I held in my hands, whirling like a dervish as I began to flog myself. When those shattered, I was given belly dancing scarves with sharp edged coins on them, and an array of floggers. I continued the dance, alternating amongst these tools.

At one point, I was no longer by the firepit. I was in the hall of the Lord of Muspelheim, He watching with His court. I, a valkyrie of Odin danced and flagellated myself, performed before the Master of Fire. This added prestige to Surt, that Odin would send wife and valkyrie to perform the dance of fire and pain. He ordered me to use specific tools, and to whip myself more thoroughly. I was given no quarter.

Eventually, I was allowed to put the flogging instruments down and galdr the runes of fire. During the earlier part of the ordeal, Surt had showed me specific dance steps, saying “earth and fire are the weapons of war” and teaching me how to utilize this energy magically. It was difficult to ground by the end. My trance was deep; I’d journeyed to Muspelheim; I was physically exhausted. Close to seven hours from the time I lit the fire, I was permitted to stop. As the fire burned to embers, W. and my fire-teacher, who had arrived mid-way through my ordeal, held me down (for safety’s sake—I asked them to). R. took a cautery pen and branded Surt’s rune: cweorth, the rune of fire-mastery, the rune of the funeral pyre, the rune of creative destruction into my left thigh. Once the embers burned out, the ordeal was complete. I asked my fire-teacher to go up to let my mother know I was ok (I had massive cuts and bruises on my body and was bleeding and dirty so I wanted to get cleaned up before she saw me). W. and R. helped me carefully back up to the house where I was shepherded into the shower. They and J. scrubbed me down (I could barely stand on my own) and poured salt water over the brand and all the cuts—to clean them, not out of any ordeal. Then I was left alone to dress (once it was verified I wouldn’t pass out or fall over). Eventually, we went out for a nice dinner (though I looked like a battered wife sitting between R. and W!).

Despite how exhausting and painful this ordeal was, it was a truly ecstatic experience. I came out of it with so very many gifts, completely unexpected. Best of all, I had earned the right to work with fire. I had done something that I never thought I’d be able to do. I, who had long lamented that I had been forced to give up my dancing career, had been gifted anew with a type of dancing – fire dancing—as a magical and shaman’s tool. Surt, through the challenge and blessings of fire, had given me my body back. That would prove crucial for the next ordeal.

My Svartalfheim Ordeal 03/15/2011

The following article first appeared in the online journal “Blood for the Divine.” Over the next few months, I will be re-publishing my ordeal articles here, on my own blog. To provide a bit of background, as part of my service to Odin, I was required to undergo nine personal ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds. Those ordeals opened me up and aided me immensely in my work, and in coming into my own as a shaman. The article below recounts, as best as one can given the limitations of words to capture the depth of the experience, my third ordeal within this 9-Worlds’ cycle.

Ordeal is about 2%, if that, of what I do in service to Odin, yet in many ways the wisdom, humility, and knowledge that I gained throughout this 9-ordeal cycle has come to define me as a person, a devotee, a godatheow, and a shaman. These ordeals made me. I grew up through the process of meeting and engaging with them. I learned my measure – where I am weak, where I am strong, and where I fall someplace in between - and that’s a powerful gift. I don’t think that I realized exactly how precious a gift it was until years later.

While I am Odin’s godatheow, I also relate to Him in many other ways. Our relationship is complex and multi-faceted. We are many things to each other He and I, not just Master/godatheow. This particular page of my site, however, is expressly for the discussion of ordeal and therefore, that is the aspect of my relationship with Odin that I shall emphasize here. This should not be taken to imply that everyone must be an ordeal worker to serve Odin. That would not be true at all. This is one way out of thousands to honor Him and if He wants it of a particular devotee, that devotee will know. In the meantime, other aspects of my relationship and interactions with Odin are discussed on my blog, or the Odin’s Ve page. Enjoy.

Serving Odin – the Third Ordeal: Svartalfheim
By Galina Krasskova

This ordeal turned out to have many lessons about memory and obligation, about accountability and the responsibilities incurred by emotional impulsiveness. It taught me much about the blocks and masks I wear for good or ill. Odin said recently that I need not always be so hard, but…I do not always know any other way to be. The Svartalfar taught me the danger of such bravado. This ordeal was about humility and old offenses coming home to roost. It changed the way I relate to the Gods and spirits because it showed me that not only do They all have very long memories that don’t just take into account this life, but all our lives, but that reparation must be made. Period. There are no free rides, most especially in this work and we are called to restore what we have sundered. It’s easy for advanced magicians (or warriors) to fall into great arrogance, even hubris…this ordeal taught me more than any other, the folly of such a thing...Even if lifetimes have passed. Wyrd works. It unfolds and carries us to where we must be, even when the journey is difficult.

The account below is taken from my journal, written at various points over the weekend of March -6, 2007. It’s more stream of consciousness than the other accounts largely because I was writing it while I was in transit, in shorts bursts. Also, more than any other, this ordeal involved large periods of path-walking directly into Svartalfheim.

March 1: JFK Airport:
So the ordeal has started already and I’m not even in Brussels yet. The plane we were supposed to depart on at 6:15pm went out of service. Now, we’re scheduled to leave at 10:30pm. (We actually didn’t get off the ground till close to midnight). I considered cancelling, rebooking tentatively for next week but runes were bad: Berkana and Tiewaz reversed. Eihwaz was my counsel and I feel Svartalfheim in this.

I spoke with LH. (the ordeal master/shaman overseeing this ordeal) prior to leaving the house today and she said that this ordeal will entail specific things (with my luck, in the friggin’ woods) over the next three days. She said they’ve been telling her that they want my remorse (and according to her, they know how to get it): they want me to give up my remorse, the remorse I carry…ah, how she phrased it has slipped my mind. It ties in nicely though with Hela’s lessons. I know –and told the Svartalfar—that such things as this delay—inconveniences which so easily trigger my temper—are good: to test, teach and build character, but I can’t say I want more of them!

Friday, March 2:
(Had an epiphany: Midgard is the most powerful of worlds because here the core energies of all worlds and all Gods can co-exist and mingle.

Setting foot on Belgium soil also prompted this huge epiphany about the American Heathen community. No wonder we’re so lore bound. They’re compensating for lack of ancestral land connection. Here in rural Belgium, the land is dense, layered, rich in memory and experience. It’s palpable. One can taste the blood of the Napoleonic wars, the Templar thread and all the way down to Neanderthals. People still have an instinctive tie to it. They still honor the ancient compact with the land, especially in the rural areas. The vaettir are strong and fed and very, very vibrant. Here the land holds and provides what we use the stabilizing power of lore for. I realized that you can’t really connect to your ancestors until you’ve walked upon your ancestral land, wherever that may be. To know where you’re going, as the cliché goes, you really must know where you’re from. You must acknowledge the forces that shaped you.

Saturday, March 3
I went to Belgium for my Svartalfheim ordeal, which was facilitated by LH. it was a two day affair and initially may have been longer.

After breakfast (9am), H. took me on a many mile hike, through fields, swamps and forests. We walked and path-walked. We entered an outer forest of Svartalfheim and I was tagged by them. This etheric tag showed the reason for my being there and would dissolve in a couple of days. It gave me lawful access to parts of their realm and ensured that unless I was particularly, egregiously stupid, I would not be unlawfully attacked. While walking, we went past a swamp and I saw weapons in the water. It was the first hint I had that for the entire weekend every time I was in Svartalf territory, my energy Sight was wide open when normally I must rely only on my Empathy. After our hike, we had lunch at a local pub and then went to a medieval Cistercian abbey. It’s amazing and amazingly magical. Rather than desecrate the earth, the buildings are actually an extension of its energy. It’s one hell of a power spot and I have to say, someone knew what they were doing when they built that. I lay on my back in one area where, during mass, only the priest would be permitted to tread. I watched droplets of water falling from this huge vaulted ceiling. It was immensely cleansing. I showered in it, drank some of it and had hands and face anointed. The stream of water moved toward me when I stood beneath it.

There were dozens of underground passages, catacombs, tombs, cells in the abbey and because they like such places, several of these functioned as doorways to Svartalfheim. I was led to crawl through a low tunnel and eventually went into an underground prison cell (though why this was in an abbey, I don’t’ know). The place just oozed with Svartalf energy and at one point, I was told to put my hand in a dank hole to capture some of the energy…another tag to ease my passage. I didn’t want to but LH. told me I might be sorry if I didn’t, so I overcame my aversion. Above was a walled nook that would have made a wonderful outdoor shrine. Below, in the cavern was one hell of a Svartalf doorway. LH. had me come in and go a little way through the doorway and that was my first encounter with their primary Goddess. Her energy is deep blue, smooth like glass, very dark, though LH. said it could also be jagged like splinters of glass. When I actually saw Her, LH. told me later that my face went visibly the shade of old milk. I respectfully backed out [quickly].

Before I left the house that morning, I put on a hand woven protection charm that R. had made for me. I have a trick left ankle and was worried about spraining it, so I put it on the left ankle (and made it through the ordeal without injury). I’m leaving it there until it dissolves. Anyway, Svartalfs seem to like spiders, insects, snakes which makes sense as they live in caves and caverns (did I mention I’m incredibly arachnophobic?) and I left some pretty glass as an offering and a huge tektite. I’d been told before leaving NY to bring a pouch of odd assortment of things so I did and ended up using some of it as offerings to pave my way. Anyway, LH. had to guard the doorway this time because a group of Svartalfs in spider form wanted to come through and tear me apart. We couldn’t figure out why. She’d asked me if I had any idea what I’d done but I didn’t. I’d never had any Svartalf encounters in this life so we figured later that maybe it was my bloodline, or Odin, or Loki’s influence. But this was the first warning we had that in some way, shape or form, I was being held responsible for having done them a great wrong. It was good to be warned in advance.

Prior to lunch, we stopped at a shallow cave grotto where I made a small offering and was tagged again on the right side. Right after I was tagged the first time, while still in the forest, I picked up a jagged black rock from Svartalfheim for my altar (with permission). I also took another from the abbey. These will form the center pieces to the altar I will set up to the Svartalf Goddess when I return home.

We came home after that for snacks and in early evening went out (or tried to as you’ll see) to a Neanderthal cave Rocher de Trou Margritte. Apparently, the Neanderthals left loads of high quality offerings here to be allowed to stay but were so terrified of what lived there that they left in one hell of a hurry. That is how shamans and spiritworkers may attribute the findings at any rate and after going there, I certainly believe this to be the case! Archaeologists speculate that they were set upon by Cro Magnon, though there’s no evidence of that, but we know what it was: the Svartalf Goddess. That cave is a major doorway. Where the abbey was a “civilized” doorway, the cave is a primal one. We didn’t get to it that night though. We drove to Ansemme and Dinant but the Svartalfar weren’t making it easy for us. It was a lunar eclipse –blood moon—a time of celebration and great power for the Svartalfar. Hela had told LH. that we had to go out that night even though LH. was concerned about my safety and had petitioned to do it at the house. We took a wrong turn and came up behind and above the cave with a wild party going on in the hotel nearby. We drove down this muddy dirt road between a field and a forest and LH. went to scout. She encountered really nasty things in the forest and I saw them lurking behind the car. Driving out, our car was physically pulled off the road and into a ditch. We tried for an hour or so to get it out with jack and pulley and finally decided (and Hela agreed) to not lose the blood moon but to go into the woods to at least talk with the Svartalfar. I found the place to call them and H. sat guarding my back. I galdred hagalaz (very softly so as not to draw attention from anything but Svartalfs). Several came. One had a huge six foot spider with him and it was very aggressive and at one point nearly attacked me. It calmed a bit after I made an offering and took my hands out of my pocket keeping them palm forward.

LH. spoke to them and explained why we were there and I confirmed their response empathically. She later said she was hoping my sight wasn’t on and picking up the spider but oh, it was. The Svartalfs said they were busy with the blood moon and basically to come back tomorrow. The damage to our car had been done by unsupervised Svartalfar youth but though this had been unsanctioned, the Svartalf party said they’d consider that our “stupid” tax for having interrupted them on blood moon. Then we were told to leave and not look back.

We made a bee line to the car. I got scratched up by thorns pretty badly but when I asked them to let me go, they did. It was sobering to think that Svartalfs could cover that type of territory silently and at about 15 mph. LH. said that my night blindness was actually an asset because it made me less of a threat. Also, I was totally unarmed, as instructed. I begin to wonder if I’d have gotten out alive had I been carrying weapons. (Yes, one can incur serious physical injury and even death at this level of path-walking).

We then spent the next seven or so hours trying to get the car out. We were not permitted to call for help until every other option had been exhausted. This was part of the ordeal, I suppose. At the last minute, Svartalf youths would muck our plans up: pushing us, snapping rope, throwing shit. Finally, when they broke the jack in half and kept lobbing rocks at us and all other options had been exhausted and I was risking hypothermia, LH. was permitted to call the Belgian AAA emergency number and they sent a tow truck in about 40 minutes. While LH. went out to the main road to wait for the truck, I stayed in the car and Svartalf youngsters threw pebbles at the car. Once the truck arrive and pulled us out of the ditch, we went home for food, bath and 4-5 hours of sleep.

Sunday March 4
At about 3pm, after about four hours of sleep, we drove to Dinant again, LH. having doubled checked the location of the cave. She left me by the La Lesse river while she went to scout the best route to the cave. Doing so, she ran into a local arborist cutting some trees and told me later that in lore rich areas, it’s often necessary to get a local “gatekeeper” to give you access to magical sites themselves. He pointed out the cave. This time, we were not waylaid by Svartalfheim adolescents. Their antics were actually an embarrassment to the adults and lost them a bit of face. So while LH. was scouting, I explored the La Lesse river. It was so easy to sense the river Goddess and the vaettir were very strong, pleasant and plentiful. I made offerings of chocolate, which was what I had on hand. Had I been there longer, I would have started picking up the scant bits of trash that were around but LH. came back and we had to go to the cave. The first cave she’d found had her a bit worried---it had a twelve foot steep climb and was very much in view. One of the maps gave the location of Trou Margritte in a slightly different location though and when she checked that out, that turned out to be the right place. It was off the side of the road, up a rocky hill and completely concealed. It overlooked a lush river valley.

We walked through overgrowth and climbed up the hill, which was in itself pretty damned steep. I’d never been in any caves let alone a major Neanderthal cave and it was amazing. The energy was old, layered, primal and strong. It was easy to sense vestiges of the people that had once lived there. Originally, I was going to be in a climbing harness dangling from the mouth of the cave for awhile and dealing with the Svartalf Goddess that way: like a spider’s prey bound before being devoured. I’d have been hooked to LH. and blind folded for the initial drop off, which would have been a very direct entry into Svartalfheim, which doorway I wouldn’t have been allowed to see. Because of the car trouble and attendant cold and discomfort (perhaps in face saving payment?) that was deemed unnecessary now. (Also, I’d tried the harness in a lower drop the first night I was in Belgium and far from being an ordeal, I found it a lot of fun…which I’m sure played in to my being permitted to enter the cave on foot, rather than by a means I found enjoyable).

I fell once inside the cave itself but only bruised myself – on piles of rocks. LH. took me to a small nook in the back upper right of the cave and gave me 1/8 dose of calamus tincture, to sharpen my energy Sight. She then anointed my head and back of neck with two oils to which the Svartalfs are allergic. Basically this would keep them at a distance and keep them from tearing me apart. She went down and behind an altar (a large rectangular rock that was perfect for an altar, right inside the entrance in the right corner of the cave) to set up. I laid out the glass ornaments (I’d broken one by falling on it, so didn’t offer that) cigars and candy and turned out my light.

They came and quickly. It was claustrophobic and terrifying (one later teased me about having mountain etin blood and being claustrophobic—I was surprised to find that even in the midst of an ordeal, the Svartalfar have a healthy if cynical and sarcastic sense of humor). One to my right took the form of a very large spider and it was all I could do to remain calm. Of course it was just as scary, the thought of having to push past him to escape. I was wondering how long the oils would last!

I asked what my crime against them had been and was shown the image of a Svartalf. It took me a little while to figure it out but I realized in one of my past incarnations as a brash, thoughtless and prideful fighter (I won’t call what I was then a warrior), I’d killed him. While the Svartalfar can be ruthless and excel at killing, I not only had no reason to kill this man but from what I could tell, had betrayed some sort of interaction or alliance by doing so. And I killed him for no other reason than my own pride, for no other reason than to prove I could, to test my skills and possibly impress. It was brazen arrogance. I wasn’t shown much so aside from the deed, so I must infer detail. It doesn’t matter though; in the eyes of the Svartalfar I am guilty. It really brought home the fact that each life is known and cherished by the Gods. Nothing is lost to the eddies of time and incarnation. Also, while killing may sometimes be necessary, it should not be desecrated and that is what I did. Anyway, I was told to seek out their Goddess for details on how I could make proper reparation. Remorse alone, after all, is pointless.

I told LH. that I’d been told to come down and seek their Goddess and she prepared to allow that Goddess to possess her. She warned me when I could come around the corner into the main cave room. She (the Goddess) was a very good fit for LH. LH. had previously gone to bat for me in an earlier interaction with Her that day, which resulted in my being allowed the oils, all the more important since I was also bleeding and blood can oh so easily set off predators, even Deities). Now LH. crouched down behind the altar and told me I should speak when I felt Her fully seated. (When I speak of a Deity being fully seated, it implies that the possession of the human consciousness by the Deity is complete and the human consciousness has been fully pushed aside. This can take a few moments to happen even with one experienced in such work). This didn’t take very long with LH. The black light in the room took on a bluish cast and I felt Her presence smooth as glass and utterly deadly waiting, immense, behind that rock.

I told her “Lady, Your people bade me speak to you.” And I explained that I’d been shown that I killed one of them and wanted to know how to make amends. It was an intense though brief encounter and at several points She spat out (and I cannot begin to describe Her voice): “Filthy oils! Lucky to live!” In other words, I am lucky to be alive and quite probably would not be, were I not so warded (there was also the matter of the deal Odin had struck with Her in order for Her to consent to facilitating this ordeal).

When I told Her what I’d been shown, She said “My lover.” I apologized for my poor human hearing and asked her to repeat. She said the man I killed had been Her lover, that they all were male and female both. I don’t know whether this was meant literally or whether it was symbolic of the way this Deity feels about each and every one of Her people. It really didn’t much matter at the time. I was sure at that moment, that I was a dead woman. I asked how to make reparation. She pointed out that nothing would bring him back and that they breed only with difficulty. She said were it up to Her, She would order me to breed one but that “Your Odin” won’t permit it. (Thank you, Husband!!!!). Instead, I was ordered to find a Svartalf-souled human (it happens) and foster him (and it will be a man), whether he likes me or not, whether I like him or not. I must guide him and give him what he needs (not sexually, but foster as a guardian might foster a child, in other words mentor and teach). Then She said She was done with me, but to tell “my” Odin that She wasn’t done with Him yet. Then I was dismissed with the words “Lucky to live. Get out.” I said, “Yes, Ma’am” and got the hell out of the cave, leaving everything behind.

I waited outside the cave for LH. who brought our things out awhile later. Then we set off down a winding , but fairly easy path that we hadn’t seen before. This took us to the car. We drove home, made a fire, and I called my mother to assure her I was ok, as she’d been very worried. We had high protein dinner and did some energy work. Right before I went to bed, I felt the tag dissolve and a huge but very corporeal spider crawled out of my pant leg and away.

I asked LH. if I should set up a small shrine to their Goddess as I’ve been doing after each of my ordeals for the Deities in question and she said she felt their Goddess might like that and gave me some workable instructions. I was also given a steel ring with the symbol of the Svartalf house to which the man I killed belonged. I was told to wear it and that this would draw us together, though it might take a decade or more. So I have my slave bond LOL, but one that will give me a bit of protection from lesser nasties as I’m now in the employ of the Svartalfar. One thing this really drove home is how great a gift fertility is. It’s not a gift I personally want-- I never want to breed -- but it is a gift. Granted, humans have abused it by not taking into account our resources (we over breed) but still….given the high rate of still births and difficulty in conceiving and carrying to term other races like the Svartalfar experience, it is a gift. When I have my Vanaheim ordeal, I want to see if there is some way my fertility can be removed from my body and given to a Svartalf woman, so that she would then have human fertility. It’s a gift that should be used by someone who cherishes it.

So, that is it. I came home Tuesday after several more protections were loaded onto me for safe passage. (Svartalfar are pretty ruthless and upfront only in their ruthlessness so …”trust God but keep your powder dry” as the saying goes). LH. was treating me like a diplomatic parcel. My Muspelheim ordeal is already scheduled for May so I now have that to prepare for. I’m grateful to have survived this one, though I have to say, even at their most terrifying, the Svartalfar have a definite aesthetic sense.

My Niflheim Ordeal 03/08/2011

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The following article first appeared in the online journal “Blood for the Divine.” Over the next few months, I will be re-publishing my ordeal articles here, on my own blog. To provide a bit of background, as part of my service to Odin, I was required to undergo nine personal ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds. Those ordeals opened me up and aided me immensely in my work, and in coming into my own as a shaman. The article below recounts, as best as one can given the limitations of the words to capture the depth of the experience, my second ordeal within this 9-Worlds’ cycle.

Ordeal is about 2%, if that, of what I do in service to Odin, yet in many ways the wisdom, humility, and knowledge that I gained throughout this 9-ordeal cycle has come to define me as a person, a devotee, a godatheow, and a shaman. These ordeals made me. I grew up through the process of meeting and engaging with them. I learned my measure – where I am weak, where I am strong, and where I fall someplace in between - and that’s a powerful gift. I don’t think that I realized exactly how precious a gift it was until years later.

While I am Odin’s godatheow, I also relate to Him in many other ways. Our relationship is complex and multi-faceted. We are many things to each other He and I, not just Master/godatheow. This particular page of my site, however, is expressly for the discussion of ordeal and therefore, that is the aspect of my relationship with Odin that I shall emphasize here. This should not be taken to imply that everyone must be an ordeal worker to serve Odin. That would not be true at all. This is one way out of thousands to honor Him and if He wants it of a particular devotee, that devotee will know. In the meantime, other aspects of my relationship and interactions with Odin are discussed on my blog, or the Odin’s Ve page. Enjoy.

Serving Odin – the Second Ordeal: Niflheim
By Galina Krasskova

One of the things that became powerfully clear to me throughout my ordeal cycle was that I have been immensely blessed by a handful of very dear, very close friends. It’s not that I neglected my friendships before this, but having everything in your life, especially in your interior life stripped away to the bare essentials really does tend to realign one’s priorities and bring a certain perspective and clarity. Certain truths are brought home when a friend is willing to walk into hell with you and, moreover, to care for you during and after such a trek. Niflheim, above all other worlds, taught me gratitude.

Looking back on my first ordeal, I’m amazed at how terrified I was at the time, at how overwhelmingly difficult it was. I realize now, that each of these ordeals were pushing me, challenging me, training me, and preparing me for the next one. That wasn’t their only purpose, but it was something that occurred consistently throughout the cycle. I could not have begun with the third or fourth ordeal. This was a gradual building process and Hela laid the foundation stones. All the ordeals hold places of remarkably stark clarity in my memory and it seems that there was a huge leap in physical difficulty from Helheim to Niflheim. I suppose when dealing with this particular world and the lessons it brings, that is only to be expected.

Niflheim is the Norse world of ice and cold. It is a world of stasis and contraction, of inertia and rot. In the beginning, before time was, before even the Gods were, there was Niflheim (and its sister world Muspelheim, the world of fire). They spun in opposition to each other, and in balance. Gradually they began to draw closer to each other and one day collided in a great, primordial conflict, a big bang, if you will. From this collision of diametrically opposed dimensions, all life burst into being. Niflheim is the home of the dragon Nidhogg, who gnaws the rot from the roots of Yggdrasil. It was this being I had been ordered to meet.

The following is transcribed from my journal account, written two weeks after my February 2007 journey into the world of ice.

It’s been two weeks since my Niflheim ordeal and I’ve only now been able to gather myself enough to write about it. I know that it’s important for me to keep clear accounts for myself, but this particular ordeal pushed me to the limits of my physical endurance and ripped me open emotionally in ways I never, ever expected. I’ve had such an aversion to the whole experience that I even left all my camping gear with W. and F. after the journey was done. I just didn’t want to look at it for awhile. I suppose I’m lucky though that the Gods permitted me to use the gear at all. I know in my mind and heart that this ordeal could have been so much worse.

The shape and structure of this ordeal was determined at the tail end of my Helheim ordeal in November: I was to seek the dragon Nidhogg in the wilderness over a period of three or four days. It was very important for me to experience Niflheim not by spirit journey but in the actual flesh, so that I would truly understand what that realm was all about and, I now suspect, so that the sheer physical discomfort would further contribute to the process of ripping me open. W. and F. volunteered to take me up into the woods in Lincoln, NH for four days of winter camping (they actually like camping. I’m a consummate city girl. The idea of spending four days in the wilderness was nightmarishly overwhelming to me). Eventually, we scheduled this to take place the first weekend of February and I set about purchasing my gear. I had never camped before and I have a severe back and neck injury so there was a strong element of potential danger in this ordeal. I’d never gone camping before, or hiking, or really done anything out of doors. I’m coming to realize that my childhood and early adulthood were very sheltered things!

I traveled up to their home as planned on February 1st. It’s odd how many important situations and ordeals in my spiritual life seem to take place around Imbolc. Before going, in honor of that, I performed a brief Imbolc ritual and made a necklace as a gift to Brigid, since it is Her holiday. For all that I am Heathen, She does seem to crop up again and again in my life, though I have no particular call by or to Her. Still, it never hurts to be respectful. I made sure to pack my prayer beads too and a journal, as well as scalpels and bandages in case the latter were required as part of the actual ordeal. After arriving at W. and F.’s, I spent a night at their apartment and we set off in the morning.

We stopped at EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports) to pick up some last minute supplies and food and arrived at the park rather later than we expected. We got geared up and headed off on a four mile hike to get to the actual woods. I knew I was in trouble the moment they put the pack on my back…it was much heavier than I thought it would be and I staggered under the weight. To get to the actual woods, we had that four mile hike ahead of us. The four miles were on a wooded trail, but one fairly well traveled by other hikers and skiers. W. and F. had selected a route for us to follow weeks in advance of the actual ordeal trip and the route selected was perfect. We entered the initial path by crossing a suspension bridge. The water was beautiful. It was the most vibrant shade of icy green that I have ever seen, in part because of the layers of ice that had formed beneath the surface of the water. Upon crossing that bridge, there was the palpable sense that we were crossing not into Niflheim but into an in-between place, a place of passage form one world to the next, neither our world, nor Niflheim. We weren’t just walking; we were path-walking, journeying between realms, between the nine mighty worlds.

It was cold, but not terribly so as we began. The first couple of miles of the hike weren’t bad. By the fourth mile, my left hip began to spasm badly. Since we started late, we were rapidly losing light and W. had gone on ahead of us to scout the campsite and start setting up the tents. F. stayed with me and encouraged me through the worst of the pain and really kept me going. Finally, we came to a second bridge and the end of the populated trail. On the other side of the bridge lay unbroken woods and she challenged me, letting me know that if I wanted to back out of this ordeal, this was the last opportunity to do so. I knew that I couldn’t though and so we crossed that second bridge walking and path walking and there was the palpable sense that by doing so, we were crossing into Niflheim.

A half mile later we were at the campsite. It had started to snow by that time (W. said the only thing worse would have been icy rain) and we hurried to set up the two tents. Since I’d never been camping before, W. and F. did almost all of the actual work setting up, teaching me as they went how to manage my gear. For the entire time we were there, we had a cold camp (no campfire) and after boiling a bit of water on a tiny portable stove, I ate a couple of bites of a dehydrated meal and went to bed.

Late that night is when the emotional weight of the ordeal began to hit me. I knew I was in Niflheim and as much as I may dislike Midgard and feel myself an alien there, it was rapidly brought home to me that it is my home. I am as much a part of the human world as I am any of the other worlds and it’s important to honor that. There are emotional ties that I have to people in Midgard that could never, ever have existed in any of the other worlds and we live, despite how badly we fuck it up, at a far higher level of comfort here than in any of the other worlds, especially Niflheim. Ties here are based on emotional connection and caring, not, as in Niflheim, on ruthless survival. This ordeal was also the first time I’d really courted my own mortality. It’s one thing to work out in a dojo with folks wielding edged weapons. That’s dangerous, but it’s a controlled danger. Here, there was no such control. We were completely at the mercy of the elements: ice, cold, and snow.

It wasn’t my mortality that I was confronted with though. Late that night, I was hit hard by the mortality of those I care about the most, especially my adopted mother. The reality of her impending death really hit me terribly hard (This part of the story is not mine to tell. Those who know her will understand why it hit me so hard. ). That knowledge was sudden agony. I do not know which frost etin came to drive the point home, but I felt the presence and I was rapidly reduced to sobbing. She nourishes me in ways I was never before able to express and the thought of her death struck home, a blow for Midgard, like nothing else. When she dies, it will leave my life as barren as Niflheim was that night I huddled in my tent.

I couldn’t stop crying and I was told that Midgard is the brightest of worlds. We live and love here with a uniqueness that I still don’t quite understand. I was told that this uniqueness is unknown elsewhere: Midgard is the meeting place of Gods. We carry that forth causing both confusion and brilliance in our lives. We carry those bits of Gods in our DNA. This is the place where creativity can flourish and the friendships and love bonds that we have are so precious and unique precisely because they would be impossible elsewhere.

That night, the temperature dropped ten degrees below zero, the coldest I’d ever endured. I started noticing things about the woods around me: trees have their own language and talk to each other if one listens carefully enough. It’s even possible to understand their speech a little bit. The cold has a different smell at night when it’s coldest and in the morning, when light warms some of the chill away. Ice can sing.

Saturday it was very, very cold throughout the day and we mostly huddled in our respective tents and sleeping bags. I was allowed very little contact with W. and F., though they kept an eye on me to make sure I was alive. I spent a little time with them that morning, telling them what had hit me so hard about my mother, about Midgard, etc. Then I went back to my tent to write a bit in my journal and to write a letter to my mother. We were originally going to pack up and move to a different site and then come out of the woods two days later by a different route but the brutal severity of the weather changed our plans. Since I’d found a place where I could go to call the dragon later that day, and for safety reasons, we decided to stay at our original campsite and depart the following day, provided I did all I needed to do with Nidhogg. Around dusk, I prayed my prayer beads and went to the clearing selected to call Her.

I have to admit, huddling in a freezing tent (which at night iced over inside), colder than I’d ever been (we found out when we reached civilization the following day that it had been 25 below zero), completely cut off from anything Midgard, being slowly opened emotionally and ripped raw (I am a very private, reserved person who would generally prefer to eat glass than talk about her feelings), I wondered what on earth I was doing there. For the first time, I really regretted being a spirit-worker, having sought out Mimir and having asked for more skill (a warning, folks: you pay the price not for what you receive, but simply for asking). I regretted everything and wanted nothing more than to live a quiet monastic life without any magic or shamanic crap. I knew this was impossible –alea iacta est--but still, for the first time regret hit me so very hard. I even felt immensely resentful of Odin and wondered if there was any point to what I was doing at all. The whole experience was like some sort of vicious experiment in sensory deprivation and I still feel rather traumatized by it…far more than I expected I would, though I knew these ordeals would rip me open and change me. I found myself missing my connections to Midgard, especially those people closest to me, longing to hear their voices, especially longing to speak to my mother. At one point I had to fight down the panic that I would get back to civilization again and she wouldn’t be there, would already be dead. I found myself praying to the Gods to get me through this. Magic, shamanism, the rest of it held at that point utterly no allure for me. I just wanted to love the Gods with the humility my mother has in her devotions. I found myself questioning whether being a spirit worker (as though I had a choice) was really the way I am meant to serve. I have never before felt cut off from everything that I am, and everything and everyone that I care about. I’ve always considered myself a solitary person but my mother (she is my adopted mother) had pointed out that she felt that was only because I’d never had a choice in the matter. Now I began to realize she was right: I need the people in my life. I need the contact, both to give and to receive. Despite the way that Midgard has harmed me, and the pain it continually evokes, I saw that through those I care about, I have a place there. Maybe the beauty of Midgard lies in the fact that love and friendship can overcome that terrible hurt that it can so easily and readily cause.

I was so damned cold on Saturday that I found myself actually thanking the Gods that we were leaving Sunday. I don’t think I could have taken one more day in that place. Even now, it makes me sick to my stomach to think about those three days. Anyway, Saturday at dusk, I prayed my prayer beads (though I felt like doing anything BUT praying to Gods that had brought me to that desolate place) and headed out to the clearing I’d selected to seek the dragon. W. and F. stayed in their tent while I went out. First, I laid a large pouch of cardamom tea (a favorite of mine) loose in an organic linen bag by a log. This was an offering to the frost etins for granting us safe passage (more or less) in and out of their territory. Then I spoke aloud, explaining why I was there and I began to sing to the dragon. I had been told at the end of my Helheim ordeal that I would have to sing to the dragon. I tried over and over to prepare a song in advance but nothing would come. I managed part of a chant to the dragon of rot but ultimately I was moved simply to galdr and I sang the rune nauthiz for quite awhile. I’m not sure how long it was until this massively long blue dragon appeared. She (although S/He told me S/He could appear as either gender or none depending on Her wishes) took the remains of the poison from me, not in blood, as I’d expected, but in tears.

Hela had infected me with a poison during my Helheim ordeal, a poison designed to bring up my contempt and all the rotted parts of my spirit and psyche so that it could be extracted by the dragon. Nidhogg did extract it, but through my tears. As I galdred, W. and F. told me later that they could hear a second voice counter-pointing and answering my own. When I went back to my tent, I stopped by theirs to ask W. if there was anything more to be done (I was very glad not just to have two friends there who were experienced campers, but to have one who was also a shaman to double check things). He said I looked like a weight had been lifted, that I looked completely different from before meeting with the dragon.

I went back to my tent and slept as best I could. Kari sent His son Frost to watch over me, a gift I appreciate immensely. That night, the temperature dropped to 23 below zero. We had all planned to get up and get an early start Sunday and every time I woke up during the night of terrible cold, I’d check my watch and think, “only X more hours until we can leave.” A little after 8am W. called up to see if I was ok and after I yelled back that I was, I heard him say to F.: “Thank God, I don’t have to run to the ranger station. She’s still alive.” It drove home the fact that had I not managed my sleeping bag rightly the night before, the temperatures were so brutal that I could in fact have died. We were camping not too far from where a lost hiker had been found dead two weeks earlier. (When another ordeal master, L, very experienced in hiking and winter camping as well as mountaineering, saw the pants and boots I’d been wearing, she said I was damned lucky not to have gotten frost bite or hypothermia).

We packed up and were moving out by 9:30am. It was still terribly cold and windy. I naturally feel grateful that I have all my toes. I’d had to sleep with my boots inside a stuff sack inside my sleeping bag to melt the ice on them and they got very cold again very quickly, painfully so. Once we were on the trail back, it wasn’t so bad, but while we were packing up, it was awful. It took us several hours to wind our way back to the ranger station. We first crossed the suspension bridge out of Niflheim and into the in-between place that we had to travel to get back to Midgard. I was so relived and seeing the first human being on the trail as we walked and pathwalked back was both a relief and an odd joy. It seemed to take forever going back, but as amusing as it may sound, the thought of a heated bathroom, clean underwear, and getting the god-damned pack off my back kept me going.

Eventually, we made it to the initial bridge and crossed back into Midgard. Those passages over the two bridges were physically palpable things and I have never been so glad to return to the human world in my life. I went home with W. and F., bathed (we all oh so seriously needed a bath), changed into blessedly clean clothes and then we all went out for dinner. I realized that, with the exception of a few bites of food, I’d essentially just fasted the entire time I was out there, which L. said later made it much harder on me physically. I just had no desire to eat when I was there. I was also somewhat dehydrated. I brought a bit of water back from Niflheim to add to my altar but that was all and it was days before I could touch it after I returned. I was originally scheduled to return to NYC on Tuesday, but I had such a craving to be in my own space, to return to my own home, to call my adopted mom, make sure she was ok (and alive), and to just be back to what was familiar to me, that I went home Monday instead.

My next ordeal is the first weekend of March: Svartalfheim. Nidhogg told me I had to offer blood to the Svartalfar and there was a tiny bit of Hela’s poison left in me that only they could remove. I also found I brought the cold back inside of me…I’m still not warm. I also discovered something that Hela did to me during Her ordeal: She tied me into my root. I can’t dissociate from pain anymore. I used to be very good at doing so and could handle intense amounts of pain. Not anymore. Things that wouldn’t even have registered on my radar before are now extremely painful. My massage therapist here in NY said that now I actually HAVE a relationship with pain…which kind of hit home. But it’s really made ordeal work a whole different experience of unpleasantness. I’m still recovering from this particular epiphany. It means that I must learn to share space with pain instead of just shoving it away (and not just physical pain). I have a sickening feeling that I will be unshielded, unwarded, and completely open most especially emotionally throughout the duration of the ordeal cycle.

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My Helheim Ordeal 02/27/2011

The following article first appeared in the online journal “Blood for the Divine.” Over the next few months, I will be re-publishing my ordeal articles here, on my own blog. To provide a bit of background, as part of my service to Odin, I was required to undergo nine personal ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds. Those ordeals opened me up and aided me immensely in my work, and in coming into my own as a shaman. The article below recounts, as best as one can given the limitations of the words to capture the depth of the experience, my very first ordeal within this 9-Worlds’ cycle. Ordeal is about 2%, if that, of what I do in service to Odin, yet in many ways the wisdom, humility, and knowledge that I gained throughout this 9-ordeal cycle has come to define me as a person, a devotee, a godatheow, and a shaman. These ordeals made me. I grew up through the process of meeting and engaging with them. I learned my measure – where I am weak, where I am strong, and where I fall someplace in between - and that’s a powerful gift. I don’t think that I realized exactly how precious a gift it was until years later.

While I am Odin’s godatheow, I also relate to Him in many other ways. Our relationship is complex and multi-faceted. We are many things to each other He and I, not just Master/godatheow. This particular page of my site, however, is expressly for the discussion of ordeal and therefore, that is the aspect of my relationship with Odin that I shall emphasize here. This should not be taken to imply that everyone must be an ordeal worker to serve Odin. That would not be true at all. This is one way out of thousands to honor Him and if He wants it of a particular devotee, that devotee will know. In the meantime, other aspects of my relationship and interactions with Odin are discussed on my blog, or the Odin’s Ve page. Enjoy.

Serving Odin - The First Ordeal: Helheim
by G. Krasskova

In November 2006 I began the process of dying for my God. Over the next three years, I would undergo nine ordeals, one ordeal for each of the nine worlds in Norse cosmology. I started at the bottom of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, the Tree of life, death, wisdom, and sacrifice. I started at the bottom because I belonged to Odin. Throughout this cycle, I would work my way, through terror and pain, through love and devotion up the Tree toward Asgard, toward Him. This accomplished several things (no one can ever tell me our Gods aren’t good at multi-tasking!): I was able to undergo my shamanic death and rebirth, I journeyed to all the worlds and established contacts and allies there, I learned about His journeys and the path of Odin that I’m on.(1) It was horrible, terrifying, beautiful, painful, joyous, ecstatic, and transformative, just like this God that I serve. It was three years of calculated, on-going terror beyond anything I had experienced to that point. It honed my courage and showed me the depths and sad limits of my devotion like nothing else. I did it willingly but that willingness did nothing to lessen either the pain involved, the loss (and there was much) or the fear. Yet…one other thing I learned through all my ordeals: if He asked me to do it all over again, I would. Joyously.

The following is from my journal, which I kept throughout the cycle. The death cycle spoken about is something many shamans go through: a psychic/mental/emotional and sometimes physical death and rebirth, wherein the Gods remake the shaman in any way They see fit. For many, it occurs in one traumatic incident. For others, it is a process. Mine was a calculated (how could it not be with my Lord) cycle.

Today I began my ordeal cycle. I’ve known I had to do this for months now. I’ve had it confirmed by two different diviners and shamans, but really they only confirmed what I already knew through discernment in my heart. The only way out is through. Odin is killing me in pieces, bit by bit, because I do not love life enough to come back were He to do it all at once. That is what He said: I simply do not love life enough. He cannot simply spear me and be done with it. I would not have the passion for life to drag myself back. Yet I must be opened up, beyond what I possess the power to do myself. There is no other way for me. Nine worlds, nine ordeals and I will walk into them all…and I’m terrified. Today, I began with Helheim.

My adopted Mom flew in from CA and came up to R.’s with me. It was so good to see her. She is my touchstone of normalcy, of rock-solid steadfastness. She belongs to Sigyn and Loki and while she’s not happy about this ordeal, I know she trusts the Gods and is praying that I can see it through. She cannot be present at the ordeal, but she will be waiting to provide any necessary aftercare. I’ve been a warrior all my life and I have never felt so weak…and hopelessly unprepared.

We arrived at the farm about 1pm. W. arrived about an hour later. The actual ordeal started a little after 4pm. Between the nerves and the terror, I felt like I could barely breathe for the hour or so beforehand. For weeks I’d been experiencing this intense sense of dread and impending death. I was worrying over my adopted mother, who is not in good health and over my oath-sister, thinking that perhaps something terrible was going to happen to them. Then I took a good long look at the threads of wyrd and realized that sense of impending doom had my name all over it! I was heading toward death. I was heading toward Helheim. I was heading toward that place where no one returns unchanged. All that sense of doom was me.

It was quite cold outside but fortunately I was allowed clothing. R. had made me a robe out of a warm white blanket. He also permitted me to wear a woolen, white cloak – white the color of death and rebirth in so many traditions, and of cleansing. My Gods were with me, even though through my fear I couldn’t feel Them much. Loki had told me months ago that if I got a specific tattoo for Him, He’d walk with me as far as He could through my ordeals. I had hunted and hunted, but had not been able to find what He wanted. The night before the ordeal, awash in nervousness, I asked Him if He’d walk with me anyway. I couldn’t hear His answer though. I could not calm myself enough to hear Him. Right before I was about to robe, R. went out to get herbs to burn to ash and came back with two huge mullein leaves. He said he didn’t know why, but Loki had told him to pick them (mullein is one of Loki’s herbs) and to give them to me: one to put in each of my shoes. I almost cried. I knew it was Loki telling me that yes, He’d walk with me. I would not be alone.

After I robed, and at the appointed time, I took a basket of altar supplies and walked alone down to the field. W. was already there having been selected to witness (he volunteered and fit Hela’s criteria, having recently undergone his own shamanic death). I set up the altar and poured Her an offering of alcohol. Then W. directed me to kneel at the Northern Gate, a torii-like structure marking the North perimeter of the ritual space. I did so and each wrist was secured by rope to either pole of the gate. Then I waited. After what I thought was about a half our or so, Hela came. She had possessed the body of Her shaman R. Her presence was unmistakable. Death walked the field that night. She circled behind me as though I was less than prey, as though I was nothing, as though contemplating what She wished to do to me, what would be the least blow to do the most shattering. Then came to the front of me and extended Her hand to be kissed. It was Her skeletal hand and as soon as my lips touched the bones, this indescribable, icy shudder passed through me. Then my ordeal truly began.

She was far more merciful than I expected or deserved. She challenged me on several fronts: my massive contempt, my hatred of life especially my corporeal nature and all the fear and weakness that I hide away. Hela facilitated my colleague and friend’s death ordeal and in that ordeal, he, whose facility with words was a point of pride, was rarely permitted to speak. For me, who prefers to remain silent on those matters I hold most closely to my heart, for whom speaking of pain, or fear, or love, or anguish is the hardest thing in the world, well, She made me speak. She forced me. She allowed me no quarter, no breathing space in which to hide a single motivation, failing, or ugly, ugly fault. At one point, She slammed my face down into a large cauldron of water, holding me just long enough that I felt fear. I was surprised She let me up so quickly, after the initial shock. Then She took out my heart and made me beg to have it returned. She forced me to give voice to my deepest fears. All must go, She said, whether I would or not, all save my fear that Odin won’t want me. That I’m allowed to keep, that is fitting reminder, a memento mori or sorts.

The Goddess of death and decay chastised me for my hatred of my body and my ill-conceived abuse of it. She held a knife to my throat and taught me to be grateful for breath. My hatred of my flesh invalidates the offering of the ordeal and She charged me to examine that and to give it up. She drew forth my contempt, plucking at its roots. She took my blood, forcing me to take blood oath in the river Hvergelmir that I would break it (my contempt) down and give it up. That was my sacrifice to Her. I who am not ever fully of Midgard, must learn to connect and build threads there and contempt causes whatever roots I lay to wither away like dust. She forbade it. Then She laid a challenge on me that caused my stomach to roil and every fiber of my being to protest: I was charged with finding three people that I held in great contempt (rightly or wrongly it does not matter) and apologizing to them. Contempt in Her eyes damaged me. It was not about the other person. They might in fact deserve lawfully every ounce of contempt I could muster. I was still not allowed this indulgence. It destroyed my own worth and by doing so, made me unfit for Odin’s service. It poisoned my soul. It must go.

As of this writing, I have already taken care of this. I did so almost immediately after the ordeal, calling one person and contacting the others by email. My words were mocked and misunderstood but that matters not. It only matters that I did as Hela bade and gave what was not mine to hold, back to its rightful owners. I returned contempt to its source allowing it to run out of my heart like water through a sieve. It was wrenching. I was required to choose those people that I least wanted to contact, those people who had slandered, harmed, attacked, and libeled me for over a year causing me no end of trouble. I was required to choose people who had attacked my relationship with my Gods, especially Odin, my value, my sanity, my worth, and my right to call myself Heathen. I was required to contact those who had forced me out of what was then my tribe. I only realized afterwards that this was Hela’s blessing: in apologizing, I freed myself. My only caveat was that I should not choose someone for whom my anger was worse than my contempt.

After Hela gave me this order, the ordeal was not over. I was flogged with a bundle of thorny roses, which was more symbolic than anything else. But then She grabbed me and carved a great bindrune in my lower back with a scalpel. I did not find out until my next ordeal a few months later, that in doing this, She worked a charm into my flesh that prevented me from dissociating from pain. I had committed to my ordeal cycle, so I would feel everything. I had long been used to simply turning the needs of my body off, including pain. I had been a professional ballet dancer for years as a young woman and later a martial artist and learning to not feel pain is a necessary skill. This was no longer acceptable to Hela. She locked me down into my flesh.

She said she both bound and poisoned me, that if She were to rip it all my contempt out now, it would kill me. Instead, in addition to binding me to my flesh, She poisoned me with a charm that would rot the crap within me that needs to go. She told me it would be painful and that at my next ordeal, Nidhogg would suck it out of me.

Finally, She cut the cords binding me to the gate posts, tossed the knife point deep in the dirt and left. I got the ropes off my wrists which were both bruised and burned and sat for awhile, getting feeling back in my legs from where I’d been sitting seiza. W. had previously rescued my glasses – I hadn’t noticed – and brought them and a towel.

Hela had challenged me to be the type of person I’d have others emulate and to explore my failings there. Eventually, R. came back to the fire and had to sit and tic. Hela is very still, so it’s hard not to tic afterwards, after She leaves the body She had possessed. I think it’s the body’s way of extruding the enormous energy inherent in Her presence. We talked and debriefed each other. There was one shocking moment when we realized that despite the fire, everything Hela had touched, and only what She had touched, was frozen over.

Before this night, I’d expected physical pain but this was a humiliation ordeal, one that reduced me to tears several times. At one point, I just sobbed and held Hela’s hand to my cheek. She was hard and very just as only Death can be.

Aftewards, R. and W. took care of my bloody back. I found out later that they were a little concerned at how deep the cuts were. As I have since experienced several times, the Goddess of Death has a very firm touch! When we went back up to the house, they cleaned that and a cut I had accidentally gotten on my head. There, Hela gave me one more gift.

I have the berserkergangr. It runs in my family very strongly. Odin has long told me it is one of His gifts but also that I must learn to master myself in the storm of its fury. I had been failing at this utterly. That rage-beast that lay in wait within me was always close to the surface, always ready to explode, to attack. It might be a gift, but by not learning to value and discipline it, by not learning control and how to partner with it, I was not serving Odin’s’ will. Hela helped me. She allowed her shaman to give me a charm, based on the charm that the Gods used to bind Her brother. This shaman R. gave me the first three parts of the charm: breath of a fish, spittle of a bird, beard of a woman. He told me how to get roots of a mountain and footfall of a cat. He said to wait on nerves of a bear, the final piece of the charm, until I find out what that has to be for me. It’s different for everyone. I was instructed to gather these things, put them in a pouch, tie it with a dog’s choke chain and keep it on Hela’s altar. He also gave me the bones that had been part of Hela’s regalia glove. I was gifted with several other items from W. and E., all of which now rest on my altar to Hela. I’ve decided that out of gratitude to the Deity’s facilitating these ordeals, I will maintain a small altar to each of Them. I began with Hela’s. (It goes without saying that I also gifted the ordeal worker/shaman serving as human facilitator too)!

My next ordeal is Niflheim and it appears I have to seek the dragon by myself, in the cold, alone. W. and F. are taking me on a four day cold-camping trip in February, so that’s when the God’s want it done. That ordeal will be physically grueling. I hope I don’t fail.

Footnotes:

1. This is an interesting concept, the idea that each Deity has multiple ‘paths’ through which devotees can serve. I first learned about it in Santeria. Each orisha has different paths and when a person is dedicated to that orisha, divination is done to reveal which particular path the person is walking. This helps him or her draw closer to the Orisha in question and also provides important clues as to what challenges may be required. Over the fifteen years or so that I’ve been serving Odin in one form or another, I’ve come to realize that the same holds true for the Norse Deities. They have multiple paths that They walk and often times, this is reflected in how Their devotees are claimed.

I know that Loki, for instance can come as the gentle Husband of Sigyn, the Breaker of Worlds, the young Hellraiser with Odin, and several other paths as well. Odin has over a hundred names and each one of those sacred by-names represents a path that one of His can walk. I recently met an Odin’s woman who was following Odin as Bolverk. I walk the path of the Wanderer, the path of Odin in His quest for knowledge, and Odin as ordeal worker, Yggr -- the One who willingly sacrificed…everything. This is a new idea within the Northern Tradition, but it is one that, I believe, has its merit in the stark realities of service.

2. Mugwort, yarrow, plantain, elder, agrimony, aconite, rue were burned by W. and then Hela rubbed them into the cutting on my back. This causes the wound to heal in stark, black relief against the flesh. While it may seem counter-intuitive, hot ash is actually quite sterile.

Serving Odin 02/20/2011

(The following article first appeared in the online journal “Blood for the Divine.” Over the next few months, I will be re-publishing my ordeal articles here, on my own blog. To provide a bit of background, as part of my service to Odin, I was required to undergo nine personal ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds. Those ordeals opened me up and aided me immensely in my work, and in coming into my own as a shaman. The article below, “Serving Odin” was the prelude to my actually writing about that ordeal cycle.

While I am Odin’s godatheow, I also relate to Him in many other ways. Our relationship is complex and multi-faceted. We are many things to each other He and I, not just Master/godatheow. This particular page of my site, however, is expressly for the discussion of ordeal and therefore, that is the aspect of my relationship with Odin that I shall emphasize here. This should not be taken to imply that everyone must be an ordeal worker to serve Odin. That would not be true at all. This is one way out of thousands to honor Him and if He wants it of a particular devotee, that devotee will know. In the meantime, other aspects of my relationship and interactions with Odin are discussed on my blog, or the Odin’s Ve page. Enjoy.)

Serving Odin
by Galina Krasskova

I have bled for You,
oh my hungry God,
wept and writhed
in terror and pain
such as You alone know how to bestow
upon Your chosen.
Bliss bringer, You have broken me
to Your service
Yours alone.
I am grateful.
I am like the mountain now,
or the blade in the moment of its death arc.
I cannot be moved, save by You.
I cannot be stopped, save by Your will.
I have danced with Pain,
and I have conquered
(myself most of all).
It is no longer a broken thing
I place into Your calloused hands.
My sweetest Sustenance,
wear me well,
this girl, whom You have made
Your vestment.

I am an Odin's woman, His servant, His valkyrie, His wife, His godatheow. I am an ordeal master, honed by His will to wield pain as a healing tool. I bring terror. I unleash monsters. I bring transformation. I bring the gift of strength. I bring HIM with every breath, every step, every beating pulse of my heart. I can do this because He did the same for me.

I've belonged to Odin for a very long time. He started out tempting me with knowledge, then wooing me with His presence, and eventually breaking the wall of my pride with His terror. I fell easily to this assault upon the senses. He's very canny and knows exactly where to strike to ensnare us. Thankfully. I've been asked over the years time and again if I wished an easier Master and I have to say honestly: no. I know why Odin chose me, at least in part. We are both creatures of extremes for all that He is a God and I a human: we share that hunger, that passion for knowing, for doing, for becoming. I can accept this. In my service to Him, our natures are well matched and I, warrior that I am, can be of service. That is important to me.

Of course, I never expected that service to lead me into ordeal. I suppose I should have, knowing what I know about Odin's trials: His loss of an eye, His choosing to spend time as ergi, His hanging between two fires, and most especially His hanging upon the Tree. I never expected that He would ask that I follow Him on His path, working out the wisdom of His suffering through the medium of my flesh though, in sacred imitatio. It makes sense given my military mindset and the harshness of my background that this would be the path best suited to my skills. I had no idea though. He led me to it blind.

Ordeal work is the careful and structured application of pain, very often in a sacred setting, to create an emotional and spiritual catalyst in the one undergoing the ordeal. Pain is not the purpose of the ordeal. (Some ordeals don’t involve physical pain at all). Pain is merely the vehicle, the tool, the means by which the ordeal dancer gets where he or she needs to go. This isn't a tool that works for everyone, but for some, pain brings a clarity and integrity, a stripping away of all barriers before one's Gods that cannot be achieved in any other way. It allows the Gods access to our innermost beings.

There is another side of ordeal work as well. By going into the terrible places, by facing pain, engaging with it willingly, by allowing it to leave its marks upon our flesh, by going into the places where monsters dwell (our own monsters most of all), we gain the right and moreover the skill to guide others through that selfsame darkness. Since I graduated from ordeal dancer to ordeal master (though one never stops undergoing one's own ordeals), I have experienced this time and time again. Ordeal isn't just about undergoing painful trials. it's about a process that makes us able to hold the most painful, shameful, soul-shattering, damaging things that people may give us, things that they need to share, need to have witnessed, need to let go but don't know how.

They will come to us, drawn as moths to flame, because they have seen in stark relief, that we know pain. We embody victory over their worst fears: we've gone into the darkness, into horror and survived, stronger for it. Moreover, we willingly sought those things out. We found power there, personal power. We prove with every breath that pain need not destroy and break a person. We are living emblems of the journey they are struggling to take. We know darkness. We know terror and we aren't likely to balk at their shame. We embody healing.

Every single time that I have spoken about ordeal publicly, or allowed non-ordeal workers to witness one of my ordeals (which I did once when I was teaching about the Eight Fold Path), I have been approached by individuals afterwards, individuals in some way crippled by pain, fear, and shame. To them, what they held within their hearts and minds and spirits was far, far too terrible for anyone to accept or understand. They carried weight within them that no human being should ever have to carry alone. Because I bore the marks that to them spoke of their own terrible places, because the scars on my flesh and my willingness to undergo what to them represented terror told them that I had experienced darkness myself, they were able to come to me, speak to me, and give me their terrible burdens of shame, pain, confusion, or rage. They could give these things to me knowing I would never, ever turn away in disgust. They could give these things to me because they had seen that I went through something that symbolized those self-same traumas to them, yet I had emerged stronger; and I was a shaman so the Gods had not turned Their backs on me. If the Gods still loved me, and I had gone through darkness, then maybe the Gods still loved them too. That is the terrible sadness underlying so much of what clients bring to my door: the fear that the Gods think them terrible and unlovable. That is the fear they all too often carry that breaks my heart.

  That is also what ordeal work is about. The pain is what enables one to do the work. It readies you, marks you (in a way others can see), trains you like nothing else. Pain breaks down our barriers of fear, shame, attachment, ego, hubris, and a thousand other things. It opens us to the immense compassion that the Gods have to give. Not everyone is meant to go this route. There are other equally valuable and sacred paths, but for those who are meant to walk the ordeal road, it is an immense investment of time and trust on the part of the Gods. We have a duty to repay that trust.

I'm glad I'm an ordeal worker, something a year ago I never thought I would be saying (I really do not like pain). I can do this work. I can serve Odin in this way. I understand that it is not about pain, it is about what lies on the other side of pain. Many years ago, Odin set my feet on the path that would make me an ordeal master and valkyrie. He demanded that I undergo nine ordeals, one for each of the nine worlds, each one more challenging than the last. In each ordeal, something was sacrificed, some part of me died. In each ordeal, I was gifted, some part of me restored. I went in an undisciplined, uncontrolled but fervent fighter. I emerged a shaman. Over the next few months, I shall recount my journey through the nine worlds, though words alone seem small and puny in comparison to the events themselves. I shall try my best to convey the process by which Odin took a warrior and turned her into a valkyrie. The point of undergoing these ordeals is that through pain, we learn about service. It is this process which enables us to serve as few others can. We're the dark ones, the scarred ones, who bear the love of our Gods marked directly in our flesh. Because of that, because of what we've seen and what we've endured, there is no pain, no shame, no horror that our clients, our suffering ones could possibly bring to us, that is too great for us to bear. We give absolution.