Many thousands of years ago, before the first Indo-Europeans came to northern Europe, tribes of people living in a shamanic culture survived the end of the Ice Age and watched the dawning of a new era. They brought their nature spirits and their shamanic tradition into partnership with the incoming Indo-Europeans (eventually to become the Norse and Germanic tribes) and their ascendant sky gods, and their neighbors the Saami of Finland whose shamanic tradition intermarried sporadically with theirs. Northern-tradition shamanism is the interweaving of these strands, which culminated and then faded many centuries before written documentation - and Christianity - came to that area. Today it is reviving as a spiritual practice, both through research of the remaining tiny bits of lore, and through teachings of the spirits of that cosmology. While the original northern shamans may have all died out a millennium ago, the spirits remember, even when we don't.

This weekend will bring the participants through the cosmos of the northern European ancestors through the eyes of the shaman, in a whirlwind tour of the Nine Worlds that encircle the great World Tree. We will visit the footsteps of the ancestral shamans, learning how to map the soul, how to sing the rune-spirits, how to commune with plant-spirits and harness their aid in healing the body, how to drum the spirit-drums, how to make our own luck, and how to walk the Eightfold Path of altered consciousness.

We will explore spinning and singing magic, learning shamanic healing theory, mastering the natural elements with the help of giants, learning glamour with the aid of elves, calling the beloved Dead, and touching the threads of Wyrd with the great Powers of the Nine Worlds. We will learn, hands-on, how to make fire in the cold as the ancestors did, and we will relive the creation of the Worlds in a late-night sauna ritual. Finally, bringing it all back to Midgard, we will explore the role of the modern shaman or shamanic practitioner in the civilized and concrete-bound world, spanning the centuries and bringing ancient spirits forward into our current lives.

Presenters: Raven Kaldera and Galina Krasskova

Raven Kaldera is a Northern-Tradition Pagan shaman, astrologer, homesteader, herbalist, a founding member of the First Kingdom Church of Asphodel, a transgender activist, and author of too many books to mention here. They include the Northern-Tradition Shamanism series, Dark Moon Rising, EarthBound: Pagan Homesteading, and many others. 'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.

Galina Krasskova is a free range tribalist Heathen who has been a priest of Odin and Loki for close to fifteen years. She is a member of Ironwood Kindred (MA), Asatru in Frankfurt (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) and the First Kingdom Church of Asphodel (MA). Her primary interest is Heathen devotional work and she has both written and lectured extensively on this subject. Galina is heavily involved in the reconstruction of Northern Tradition shamanism and, in addition to several of her own books, has contributed extensively to Raven Kaldera’s Northern Tradition Shamanism series. Galina holds a diploma in interfaith ministry from The New Seminary in NYC, a BA in religious studies from Empire State College and is currently pursuing her MA in religious studies at New York University. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and she is a staff writer for NewWitch magazine. She may be reached at urdabrunnr@yahoo.com.