Susannah Ravenswing

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Susannah Ravenswing

Shifting into Stillness

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With the passing of the Autumn Equinox, the cycle of light and dark has shifted and the days now grow shorter. The energy around us evolves from the external activity that accompanies spring and summer toward the gathering stillness of autumn and the meditative introspection of winter. Even with this, autumn remains a busy time, long associated with the harvest of fruits, nuts and grains. In our modern world, autumn brings a return to school for many, and a shift of consciousness from recreation to education.

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Rosemary as an Ally

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When I began to contemplate writing about the process of growing a plant and developing an alliance with it, I thought about plants considered sacred in the Northern Tradition and the vaettir or spirit I know as Mistress Rosemary gently touched my arm. “I believe we are friends already,” she reminded me, with a patient chuckle. I have been growing Mistress Rosemary for over thirty years and use her every day. To be honest, formal courtship was never required as we have long been comfortable with one another. She appears to me in green, dressed in the elaborately slashed and ruffled gowns popular in Germany in the late 1500s, with a broad, plumed hat and red-golden hair.

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Altar Tending

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As a Northern Tradition shaman, altar work is a significant part of my personal practice. In my tradition, we joke – somewhat tongue in cheek – that altars spring up in our homes like mushrooms. An altar serves as a place to honor and revere one’s Holy Powers: the Gods, Spirits or Vaettir, and Ancestors. It may be an elaborate construction with votive images or figures, candles and offerings or something as simple as a small candy tin lined in felt housing something symbolizing the Spirit of note. While the former is clearly stationary, the latter can accompany one in a purse or backpack. Many spiritual traditions include the establishing and maintaining of altars which serve as places to encounter and honor the Divine. It can also be noted that the line between a shrine and an altar is somewhat blurry.

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The Power of Water

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The Power of Water

Because we primarily experience water as a yielding fluid, we tend to think of it as a ‘soft’ element. The world around us gives evidence otherwise. The landscape here at TwoTrees has been shaped over hundreds of thousands of years by the determined efforts of Town Fork Creek, a small drainage stream which directs surface water from the rugged slopes of the Saura Mountains into the Dan River. These ridges are comprised of dense folded layers of what was once an ancient sea bed, their quartz and sandstone compressed under intense heat and pressure. Tough stuff, indeed. And yet, as this metamorphic and igneous landscape was folded and pushed up by forces deep within our earth, flowing water carved it into the relief we see today.

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A Place of Little Wonders

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On this mid-July morning at Two Trees, the cicadas sing in sizzling seduction, a rhythmic counterpoint to the cuckoo calling from the creek side and the busy bickering of purple finches at the feeder. The Cardinal family’s latest chick, now well fledged, begs piteously from her father and older sister, although she is fully capable of cracking sunflower seeds for herself. I wonder how long they will indulge her. Through the open screen, I hear the low-pitched drone of one of our female hummingbirds, coming to drink from the well of nectar we provide, followed by sharp twittering as a male contests her right of place. On the nearby dining table, the cats chatter in excitement.

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The Shaman’s Coat

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The Shaman's Coat

In every culture practicing shamanism, the practitioner accumulates, whether by purchasing, making or inheriting, ritual tools and garb, the function of which are to enhance his or her power and effectiveness. We don’t know what our Northern Tradition Ancestral shamans would have worn, but we can take our cues from the Mongolian, Trans-Siberian and Saami cultures who are our cousins and who have managed to maintain intact cultural practices.

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