Please note this is the general outline and still in progress and the syllabus may change, but please write to mythandstories@gmail.com for more information at this stage.

This advanced course is a 6 month intensive training, focusing in on deepening Seidr techniques, applying the labyrinth journey as ritual, approaching spirit-flight within Northern soul perceptions and learning how to create and be fluent in one's own magical and ritual language.  Old Norse and other ancient languages will also be worked with to deepen letter perceptions and advance the work of letter magic and the idea of "language as perception."

Sessions will serve the ritual of the High Seat adding and exploring vardlokkur and wyrd-songs in our magical tongues, but also to dare voyaging further into linguistic roots with proto-European, Sanskrit, Gothic, Etruscan and Old Norse.  This is not to learn the language but to find an old phrase on the tongue that can transform a song, ritual or story.

Rituals will be created for the benefit of our local community and for all beings, not only human.  We will study the origin rites and the creation myths of the Goddess and also how she can be re-imagined today in bringing back meaning and protection to the natural world and to our inner health and understanding.  Ceremonially, the staff and the iron ring will lead the reconciliatory framework of ceremony within ourselves and the spirit world. 

Included in the syllabus is skaldic arts and Northern poetic metres; Fornyrðislag, Galdralag and Drott-kvaett.  We will use techniques to remember to learn old poems by heart.  The skaldic study traces the storytelling traditions that started in Mesopotamia with the playing of the Lyres of Ur and they branched out into different directions such as east Africa, and West Africa, and how this was the ancestry of the cultural storytelling traditions that ended up in Northern Europe.  

 

This advanced course is available for those who have undertaken an Utiseta or who have participated in my previous courses such as The Wild Falcons or the 1 to 1’s and mentorships.  

​

Syllabus and dates: 

 

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22nd October - Wyrd Songs and their Healing Art

​

We work as if the forests, the seas and the fires are actively writing and we are reading their magical patterns out loud.  We will explore how new words can come alive, become animated and open up the possibility of chanting using ancient techniques.  We will travel from the wordless to evocative words that ride with the breath and that form new perceptions and insight. This work is not tidy, it is raw and it is here to break inherited patterns, we invite new grammar and words to become a fresh claw mark on the bark of the linguistic tree.  Expect seiðr-chants, new vardlokkur and prayers, that will be born from this practice. This is entering the heart of rune magic, to hang on the literal tree and to find incantations revealing worlds and gods, or letting old gods move through the breath.

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​
 

26th November - The Labyrinth Journey As Ritual of Transformation 

Labyrinths shapes of all sizes are found all of all over the world. When we come upon their pattern they often speak of our life's journey and how it moves circuitously towards an unknown destination, a centre, a sacred space, a soul. The flow of energy is often depicted in the spiral shapes and the rhythmic notions of life, summer to winter, birth and death, these shapes are glimpsed inside the sea shells, within whirling galaxies, meandering rivers, highways, rail-tracks, paths and landscapes.  We will study the traditional seven-fold labyrinth in depth and its history and how to apply it to ceremonial Seidr and practice.

 

​​

​

​

​

​

​

​

7th January - Spirit Flights and the High Seat Oracle

A dedication to the High Seat Ritual where the Völva is the Prophetess and healer in the Northern community.

Tracing the movement of the Goddess in the European landscapes from the Cathars to the Black Madonnas, we  dedicate this session to the High Seat Ritual where the Völva is the Prophetess and healer in the Northern community.  We will trace sigils onto the planetary tablet of Venus. There will be time to explore how these magical squares have been used since the 9th century.  This will also be an exploration into trance and ecstatic rituals of the ancient world and find out how these inner technologies can open up our spirits and hearts today, and help us find the ecstatic current often neglected in modern times.

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11th February - The Goddess and Letter Magic 

We'll be working with sigils and mark making as a new "craft of feeling" and as an intuitive artistic inspiration.  We will learn about the anatomy of lines and dots from cave art and designs.  We will explore the idea of the Sanskrit letters being Goddesses and how the Goddess-runes were interpreted by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas.   To find our through the unbidden images how a symbol can be "witnessed" in the liminal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

5. Spell metres and practising the Galdralag

Forming rune binds through intuition and art, practicing the traditional Galdralag spell metre and how to apply using our personal staff and ritual tools.  The spell metre will be our guide in discovering Old Norse stanzas of the Poetic Edda and learning how to memorise old texts.  

​​​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

25th March - The Lyres of Ur and the Poetic Metres of the Skald

Tracing the history of the storytelling traditions from Mesopotamia and into the world, tracing its pattern until the Lyre carrying Skalds singing Beowulf.   Looking at the metres Fornyrðislag, Galdralag and Drott-kvaett and how they can be used today and structuring our voices and our ceremonies.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29th April - The Staff Songs, the Horn and the Ring of Reconciliation 

​

​The Staff is central to the practice of Seidr.  How do we wake it, how do we journey with it and how can we find the staff that calls to us.  The ring of reconciliation has its roots if the truce between the Sky Gods and the Nature Spirits, the Horn represents the sharing of the Mead of Wisdom to revive the reconciliation ritual of the God and Goddesses.  The staff songs, the horn and the ring will be the tools to our structures ceremony and we will learn how to bring this into our communities as a force for well being and understanding between opposites.  ​​​