When A Shaman Dies

parlance · Guest

A friend of mine contacted me and asked me to walk between worlds for him. He belongs to a troth of the Norse Asatru traditionals and an elder had fallen seriously ill and was on life support. He was too emotionally involved to look himself, so I made the journey for him.

I found the elder in what I thought was a cave. The whole place was completely black, but because we were spirits, I could see the elder and some kind of a european shaman with him. The shaman was painted with ashes and bear grease, so that his skin looked black. The elder was laying on a bier of earth and he looked grey, which was a bad sign. I tried to take him into a higher level of the spirit world to work on him, but I couldn't do anything so I decided to watch and see what the shaman was going to do.

The shaman put a necklace of bones around the man's neck and then said something I couldn't hear and then I noticed the appearance of a tall spirit woman. She was dressed in a flowing white gown and wore a helmet like a valkyrie. There were wings on the sides of the helmet that shifted to horns and back and I knew the helmet was a thing of power. Things of power don't keep one shape in the other world. There was a disk suspended from ornamental chains from the helmet that rested over her breast bone and it had an F-shaped rune with the horizontal bars bent like chevrons. She held out two similar disks in her hands and one had a rune like an R and the other had a diamond with cross-secting lines forming an X across it. I looked the runes up later and the one on her breast was the symbol for prayer, or for a voice of the gods. The R was a symbol for a vehicle of journeying or power, and the diamond with the X on it was Odin's shield.

The Shaman had been wearing a bear robe, but now he put it over the elder and then the valkyrie took a spear and thrust it through the robe into the elder's chest. The spear's head was dark, but when she pulled it out again, it glowed with a light and looked like a crystal, then she thrust it into the elder again and when she pulled it out the head was dark again. ~continued~

parlance · Guest

I had the feeling that the elder had died and been revived when the valkyrie spirit did this, but was unable to get confirmation of this later. I was told to leave because there were things I wasn't supposed to see, so I left and waited outside. When I was called back in the shaman was pouring something into the mouth of the elder from a ladle made from a small bowl that looked like hardened leather rather than pottery, and it was tied to a forked stick for a handle. As I wondered what was in the ladle, the shaman motioned for my hand. I held my hand out and he poured some of the drink into it and motioned for me to taste it. It was blood mixed with herbs and I licked it up as it ran down my wrist.

I held out my hand for him to look and there was a circle with a cross dissecting it into the four directions. Outside the circle at the end of each line was a black dot. When the shaman saw that he put a black stone shaped something like a bullet into my palm. He motioned for me to swallow it. When I did, I threw up black blood and a gold ring. ~continued~

parlance · Guest

The shaman put the gold ring in the elder's mouth and then whispered some words into the open mouth, closing it afterward. Soon a stange spirit leaped out of the body, screaming. It turned and tried to charge me, but I willed myself to glow with light and it backed away, turning toward the shaman, who dismissed it with a wave of his hand and some words. The horrible spirit disappeared and I noticed the elder looked stronger. The shaman told me I could leave now, there was nothing more for me to do there.

Outside, in the sun of that land, the valkyrie followed me and stopped me. She had more disks to show me, with more runes. In one hand she had a disk that showed a diamond with legs extending from the bottom point in an upside down V. Later I found out that was othala, and it means land, or property. But it can also mean Odin, or Odin's people. Above this was a rune called mannaz, and it means inheritance or traditions.

She pulled the disk apart and then put it back together and there was a double image of the rune called laguz, and the two runes kept changing, turning upside down and right side up, and then it would change to a double image of a rune called seiwaz, and it moved too. The valkyrie turned to walk away, but as she moved away she tossed the disk back to me. It was mine to keep and it had a sunburst of the rune seiwaz around it's surface in a ring. But the compass point to my left had a rune like a diamond with legs at two opposing points. When I spoke to another friend about this, she said it meant "half the journey".

I told my Asatru friend that he and the others in the troth should leave the elder alone. He was going through the shaman's transformation and he would come around on his own when it was over. Anything they tried to do would only interfere and not help the situation. But there were some hotshots in the troth who promised the family they could work a miracle and they didn't want to hear what some scruffy little nobody like me had to say about things. So they tried to work a healing ceremony and nothing changed. The family lost hope and terminated the life support and cremated the body.

People keep trying to bring back the old ways, but they are a product of their times and mostly their own ignorance ends up being their downfall. I was really sad when I heard how it all turned out. It would have been interesting to see what kind of knowledge the old man brought back with him from his transformation. But that is another story that goes without an answer or an end.

parlance · Guest

I have talked to people I know about this journey into the Norse spiritlands. I don't know anything about those people or their ancient ways, so a lot of this stuff was new for me. According to the person who asked me to make the journey and a long time friend who has studied Norse traditions, gold rings were used as talismans of power. Evidently they are quite significant in magic and sorcery for those people.

I have been trying to figure out what the business of the black stone was about. It could have been a healing stone used by the shaman, but I don't think so. I am guessing from other stuff I have seen in the spirit world that it might have been the agent of the original onset of the physical illness. The shaman himself might have used it to "call" the man for his transformation by inflicting him with the illness that put him in a coma. By removing it from the body of his spirit and using me to transform it, he created the cure from the agent of the illness.

I was told that the circle that appeared on my hand was known as an earthkeeper's symbol, and that in Norse traditions it is known as the cross of Odin. But my long time friend said that if it had been European it would have had 13 dots for the 13 moons. But because I come from the other side of the ocean, it was marked by the four directions. Basically, it told the shaman that I could transform the stone, rather than be sickened by it. I was also told that he used me for this because it allowed the shaman to have more control over the process than if he had swallowed it himself. I think being a woman had something to do with it as well. Women have regenerative powers that are greater than men's where these things are concerned, and can affect a greater healing transformation. But that is getting into a whole other story.

Since this journey and the one with the badger medicine man all occurred within the same week, I was able to make a connection concerning the bier of earth. I am guessing that the cave, which I found out later was an open pit that had been covered, had been dug counterclockwise, leaving the bier in the center to allow the release of the spirit into the realm of the Norse people's gods.

Apparently the european shamans have to die three deaths, the first is a life threatening illness in the physical world. The second is the one I witnessed with the valkyrie stabbing the astral body and ritually killing it. The last takes place in the upper world of the spiritlands, and that is where the shaman is torn apart by the gods and remade with their essence to obtain the power that marks a shaman apart from other kinds of "psychics".

Among my own people, our holy ones are born with their power, and the vision quest just awakens it. They don't have to be torn apart or remade. Instead, it is more the throwing off of a cloak that hides what they are, and the revelation comes at the time when their physical being is best able to handle that responsibility.

parlance · Guest

I was surprised to find that the Europeans used the bear dreaming ceremony. Or maybe not, the bear has always been a powerful spirit in every culture that was familiar with it. The black bear is a particularly powerful dreamer, so his robe is used for this. The bear goes away for the long sleep and to do this he walks in the other world. His connection of spirit to body is one of the hardest to break, which is why his gift is used. It keeps the dreamer safe from a disconnection of the spirit from the body and ultimate death as a result. This ceremony is used for the seriously ill to effect healing, and for quests for power, when the person may have to spend a long time with the spirits. I was told one time by a medicine man that time is different in the other world. When he was on his vision quest, it only seemed like an hour or so while he talked to Wakan Tanka, but when he came down from the quest, four days had passed. He had no idea he had been away so long.

This sort of spirit journeying is different from the simple walking between worlds that I do. My astral body doesn't leave my body to follow my spirit and there is no trance or anything dramatic like that. I just look through my other eyes into the other world. Anyone can do this, it's nothing special.

purplestar · Posted: Jul Wed 05, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject:

what in the world are u talking about? I'm hoping this is a fictional story or you are looney!
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parlance · Guest

I realize you come from the hukt on fah-niks generation.

I am from the old school, where people actually had to learn to read, write, and comprehend the written word.

fratka · Posted: Jul Tue 11, 2006 7:34 am Post subject:

Purplestar,

If you don't know what someone is talking about then ask them questions and you may learn something. Just because you have never heard of a belief system doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Shamanism is the oldest form of spiritualism know to man, dating as far back as 60,000 years when man first started throwing flowers on they're dead. This belief is shared by most native peoples around the world, which share many similarities despite being seperated by thousands of miles.

Point is we keep our discussions civil here and accept what people have to say from their point of view. You will find there are as many realities as their are people and none of them are the same.

You have to do something pretty stupid to get banned from here (like insult the owner of the forum). Laughing

Keep your experience here a pleasant one! Just keep in mind, if you show disrespect expect to be jumped on by other members. We have many indepth discussions about subject matter we don't necassarily believe in just to get a feel for other peoples perspectives. Just a friendly warning!
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Frank Ratka

Death does not exist!
http://thecontactfield.blogspot.com/