Fiolþ ek fór, fiolþ ek feistađa, fiaulþ ek reynda regin (Greatly I journeyed, greatly I tried, greatly I probed the powers); hitt vil ek vita, vafđruþnis sala-kynni (which I want to know, entering the strength-weaving domains).[i]
Wandering to distant lands into the unknown is necessary for awakening and spiritual power. Wandering is not holiday or vacation. It is not travelling to a place just because it is the “in thing” to do such as Iceland.
Wandering puts us into partnership with nature and culture. Like a chameleon we become one with the land and its people. Experience is the result and the thread of knowledge in wandering. It is not about selfies or an arrogance of entitlement. Wandering as a stranger in a strange land beckons us to become one with the unknown—and love unites us.
For the greater part of my life I have been, and always will be, a wanderer and seeker. Like Óðinn, I have sought knowledge and the experience of that knowledge wherefore as a potential—wisdom. And sometimes the gift of that wisdom is a knowing—a knowing of the mysteries of heaven and earth. Such is the tale that follows:
The Icelandic Huldufólk (Hidden Ones)
Excerpted from: Return of a Green Philosophy: The Wisdom of Óðinn, the Power of Þórr, and Freyja’s Power of Nature.
After my firsthand physical experience with otherworldly energetic beings in 1997, I concluded that there would also be earthly energetic beings, commonly referred to as faeries and elves. This conclusion came from my experience, and many Otherworldly experiences from an intuitive sense, scholarly knowledge, and oral teachings from elders around the world. My family and I experienced items missing and later showing up after journeying to Cornwall, England, in the nineties, a trait of the Cornish faeries known as piskies. As with life, it might not have been the piskies playing tricks on us but our own human forgetfulness. But then…
I had journeyed to Iceland with my son and one of our students. For the first part of our journey, we were exploring the most magical region of Iceland, Snæfellsnes, a peninsula, and its volcano, Snæfellsjökull. Jules Verne used this volcano as the setting for his novel A Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This is a mystical and strange land, where the hidden ones, elves and dwarves, hide in dark crevices and caves while strange rock formations are ogres and trolls. This is the land of fire and ice. It is nature in all its glory, creative and destructive though it may be. The wind, the sea, and the hundreds of waterfalls vibrate a song of primal pureness seldom found on our beautiful but wounded earth.
It is important to follow a few spiritual protocols. These are not dogma and doctrine based but more rooted in common sense and respect for the spirit world. Asking the otherworld’s permission when conducting our spirit work is one protocol that we follow faithfully and teach to our students. When we travel to a new place or return to one, it is best to do prayers, an offering, which could be as simple as a piece of our hair, and ask permission to be there and do our work. I also ask for safety for myself and others while we are on our journey (no safety issues in over thirty years of leading people on adventures). Sometimes this rite is short and simple, and at other times more extensive and intense. There is no format to follow, just your heart. As soon as I set foot in this magical land, I felt a strong connection and kinship. For this reason, early the next morning, facing the cloud-covered volcano with the icy winds crashing into me, I did an extensive and complete rite of permission. At least I thought I did.
It is virgin land in the sense that the New Agers have not discovered it and few tourists spend any time there. It is not only unspoiled land, but it is home to many legends and myths and one of the most famous Icelandic Viking shamans, Bárður. This legendary shaman was born in northern Norway and his grandmother was a Sami who passed on her shamanic and magical knowledge to him. One of the sacred sites on the edge of the volcano is known as the Singing Cave. This is Bárður’s cave, where he would spend time conducting his shamanic practice.
Since it was October, a time of the year for few tourists, we were just about guaranteed to be the only ones visiting the various sacred sites on the peninsula. Late in the afternoon, on the second day, we spent time in the Singing Cave. As its name indicates, one of the most obvious and important practices to conduct here would be galdr—Norse magical chant/song. Once again, I needed to make myself known to the spirit world and ask permission to enter the cave and do our work. Once inside, I conducted a blessing, an honoring and opening ceremony. Then we proceeded with other practices including an old magical chant. The sound of our voices vibrated off the cave walls, and once more, Bárður’s cave was singing.
We spent another day and half on the peninsula before we returned to Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. While in Reykjavik, we stayed at the Grand Hotel, which would be our residence for the final days of our journey. The Grand Hotel is beautiful. However, I did not choose it for its beauty but for the Grand Hotel’s honoring of Norse mythology. When you enter the hotel, you are greeted with a phenomenal piece of glass artwork portraying the creation of the world based on the “Völuspá.” Their front desk is decorated with small poems from the Poetic Edda’s “Hávamál,” which provides advice for living, proper conduct, and wisdom. Staying there captured the feeling and essence of the Norse who had settled there after leaving Norway.
My room was on the twelfth floor overlooking the ocean and the fog-covered Snæfellsnes. Even though the hotel’s focus was on mythology, it was your typical, ordinary hotel…or so I thought. The next day, we were leaving early to explore Thingvellir National Park, where Iceland’s parliament, Althing, was founded. Heeding the advice “early to bed, early to rise,” I turned in around ten o’clock. I had only been asleep a few minutes before the phone began ringing. After I answered it, a voice said, “I’m calling to make sure the four Russians we sent over arrived safely since we’re overbooked here.” I told them they’d reached a private room and not the front desk and promptly hung up to keep myself from totally waking up. A few more minutes passed, and the phone rang again.
This time, the voice spoke Icelandic until I explained I didn’t understand, and they finally said in English, “This is not the front desk?” Hanging up once again and crawling back to bed, I thought, What is going on?
The phone rang constantly until I wised up and unplugged it at two in the morning. The next morning after breakfast, I plugged the phone back in and once again the calls began, all wanting information from the front desk.
Realizing it was not a fluke, I informed the front desk about the strange occurrence. They apologized and said that they would look into it, stating that it had never happened before and was seemingly impossible.
After a full day of exploring Thingvellir, I checked in at the front desk before going back to my room. The problem had been fixed, but there was no explanation for how it had happened. There was no logical reason to explain it. Later that night, as I was pondering this mystery, it finally came to me—the hidden ones. I had forgotten to include them in my prayers. And they will let you know if they have been offended or slighted in some manner. I immediately did prayers and an offering to them. The result: the rest of our journey was uneventful.
Is this the end of my story? Not at all. It seems that one or more decided to hop a ride on our flight home and now reside with us on another peninsula—this one in Washington state, overlooking the only fjord in the western continental United States!
[i] Lars Magnar Enoksen, Galdrs of the Edda, 24-25.