Tell us about yourself and your shamanic work.
Where I am today, I mostly function as a teacher/supporter and a holder of ceremony or ritual. I have had a number of apprentices over the years and quite a few individual one-on-one ceremonies to heal, above all, the soul (the psychological and emotional) and to guide people toward greater contact with their core and with the spirit within them and with the "Great Spirit" in everything. I am not a great "healer" but rather a guide and teacher of ways for the individual themselves to be able to walk in greater self-love, awareness, and to lead themselves. I work on both the mental and the energetic plane.
I am trained in Neuro-Linguistic Psychology and Neurosemantics, which among other things includes hypnotherapy. I combine the more shamanic with this type of coaching tool. I also have schooling and a great deal of experience in the Inca tradition from three teachers: Juan Nuñes del Prado, Ivan Nuñes del Prado, and Elisabeth Jenkins.
What I have noticed more and more in life is that I am a "tracker." This means that my system finds areas in people's soul-landscape where the life energy flows less well.
My shamanic journey has been parallel with my membership and leadership in Nordic Heathenry/Forn Sed/Asatru. Within this sphere there is an equivalent called seidr.
I am active in Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige as a gode, that is, a heathen priest. This involves many different functions: holding seasonal blot (rituals), life-stage rites such as water-naming, weddings and funerals. Also being a support and a guide and practicing and developing spiritual heathen practice.
Other functions I carry out are seidman, thul and eril. A seidman practices seidr, a thul is a storyteller and teacher, and an eril can be understood as a rune magician/interpreter and sorcerer.
Do you have any visions or wishes for shamanism/old faith in Scandinavia?
Yes, many!
That the "woo-woo stamp" can disappear from people in general. This can happen through an increased understanding of life's relational basis. Secular society has, in many respects, a material focus. Another valuable approach is to practice shamanism without using the word itself in the context, but instead to focus on function and on what is to be carried out. For example, it is possible to do team building with shamanic techniques and perspectives without using the word shamanism.
That psychological/therapeutic treatment/herbal medicine can just as well take place with a shaman/herbalist/seidr-person (or some other suitable word) as with a psychologist or therapist.
That seidr becomes a more widely used concept and that the practice of seidr's many tools can be of benefit to society at large.
How do you think the spiritual cooperation between the various population groups (Sami, Kven, Norse, Finnish, etc.) was in pre-Christian times?
There has been both conflict and cooperation. I believe that in cooperation they may have met "in spirit" and communicated with one another in that way, but that is my assumption, and perhaps not so many did so. Each human being belongs to their own field or sphere of energy where language and culture differ. Human existence has more similarities than differences, only variations in its expressions and descriptions. Life circumstances, such as the character of nature on the physical plane, affect people so that their language and cultural sphere differ between spheres. But all spheres are interconnected and overlap and have similarities, more than differences. People or "medicine persons" (noaidi/shaman/völva/seidman, etc.) who can see through differences are then capable of cooperation.
What is needed to create a broader cooperation in Scandinavia today?
Need and will, in openness and awareness of oneself.
Which values from pre-Christian times are important in today's society?
That the human being is in relationship and a part of their context, of physical as well as spiritual nature.
That everything is sacred, some things perhaps more than others.
That the human being lives in different cultural spheres that both should be respected and have dignity created for them, with openness to communication and awareness of community in what is alike and what is different between spheres. Dignity means that the "other" is allowed to exist in their unique form and view of life and way of living. It means reciprocity.
That the lineage/extended family is my physical origin and that the imprinting from earlier generations needs to be healed.
That we develop other bonds in the present than
Why are these values important?
Because then individuals and groups can coexist and not overexploit nature.
What do you think are the key values in creating greater understanding of shamanism/old faith today?
That the inside of life, that is, the spiritual, is greater than the physical, and that everything is connected and sacred.
That the human being is therefore here to heal, grow, and create light and community with themselves and with everything in their surrounding sphere.
Many of our spiritual song traditions have been lost; how can we renew or revitalize them?
By digging in the source of the past and beginning to sing with the knowledge that has been found. It is important to practice where we are today, with the past at our back. Traditions are not static but develop and change gradually.
What view do you have of gods and goddesses in your faith? Are they distant from us humans, or are they close in daily life? Are they an everyday help, or is it more that one turns to them in great matters?
I am a seidr-person and a sed-walker and hold the function of gode in Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige, so my pantheon is the Norse one. They are always near! The forces of nature in the place where I am are present just as much as goddesses and gods; the shining ones. Divine powers are both gods and archetypes, to describe the coexistence. Goddesses and gods are near, and we can be in communication and contact with them and make use of their power and function in every moment of life.
Shamanism is a modern word with many interpretations; what do you put into the word?
If I look past the linguistic and etymological in the word shaman and to the function, it means:
- Meeting the inside of life, what is most often called spiritual
- creating relationship and carrying out something that needs to be carried out
What is, or how is, your spiritual connection to the landscape around you? Do you experience the power as the same no matter where you are in the world, or is it stronger for you at your home place / in your own landscape?
I experience a difference depending on where I am. A number of years ago, I and several others held seidr and other rites in Italy. The nature beings were different, and I did not have the same connection with the landscape. What was carried out was fine, but I did not quite feel at home there. I was there for a long weekend; had I been there longer, I would have created a relationship with the spirit beings of the place and the landscape. When I moved home to Sweden in 2001 from the USA, I made a conscious relationship with the landscape and the energy field that we call Sweden. I notice this in a subtle but distinct way when I leave the sphere.
What do you think about shamans from other countries coming to Scandinavia and performing rituals, or conversely shamans from Scandinavia performing rituals in other countries? Is this unproblematic, or are there aspects of it that should be thought through? For example, that they/we do not know the land/the spirits here/there. Cultural appropriation and other aspects?
I find this rewarding. The exchange of similarities and differences enriches. Many times it is more nuances that are the differences. Cultural appropriation is tricky, and in order to keep it "clean," the individual needs first and foremost to have an awareness of themselves and the "own," and then it becomes clearer to relate to. That one does not call oneself something one is not, and perform rites that belong to another sphere, is important to keep track of. So much of life's core is alike between people, and it is when you enter into cosmic/spiritual structures that differences between spheres are perceived.
Today's shamanism, and not least core shamanism, draws inspiration from indigenous beliefs and traditions and is often accused of engaging in cultural appropriation. How can one avoid ending up in a situation where one is engaging in cultural appropriation?
This is a minefield. With the painful, terrible history that exists of murder and destruction. But in contrast there is the need for nature spirituality/shamanism for people today in mainstream society. They are the descendants of those who, and to some extent continue to, destroy the older, the original, from various cultural spheres. I prefer to refer to cultural spheres instead of peoples, since that word does not speak of genetics and physiognomy. The significance of genes/chromosomes is of great value, and there is much more to understand about how the physical and the spiritual (non-physical) interact with each other. No easy subject to talk about!
Some important principles: Do not call yourself something you are not! This means that I do not call myself by a name that comes from another cultural sphere that I am not part of. For example, North American tribal names, or noaidi if I am neither part of that cultural sphere nor have proper schooling in it. By proper I mean that one has had many years of learning; a weekend course does not count. This is a harder boundary; a softer one is to refer to a particular cultural sphere when performing a ceremony, and it is very important then to refer to the source.
Are there any other aspects of contemporary shamanism you would like to highlight or raise?
There is a legacy from core shamanism that I encounter now and then among others who walk the shamanic path. That the practice is so strongly associated with the so-called drum journey. To lie down on the floor or the ground, that is when one practices shamanism. Another valuation comes from anthropologists during the 1800s and 1900s, whom many have read, who wrote down accounts of shamans in Siberia and so on. An imprint in me that says "drum and rattle and spirits make the shaman" (much simplified, of course).
Going forward, I hope for a more embodied shamanism with many more forms of expression than the drum journey: dance, song, artistic expressions of all kinds. Through my years I have met people who, I feel, practice shamanism without a drum.
What matter or matters occupy you right now?
This past year I have devoted myself more and more to seidr and to holding ceremonies, planning and teaching seidr. There is much to do within seidr and Seidr.
My own more personal activity with the website www.skalleper.com has not received much attention. The gode-ship in Samfundet Forn Sed Sverige carries on, where I also hold blot, give support to members, and teach future gydjas and godes.
