Fate, Fortune, Destiny

The concepts of fate, fortune, destiny, and free will are found among indigenous people everywhere and are key concepts for the ancient Europeans.  We will combine Celtic and Norse traditions in order to broaden our basis for practicing European shamanism.  The ancient Celtic and Norse cultures share many similarities in mythic lore and practices.

The World of Hunters, Warriors, and Seafarers

We will root our understanding of fate in the elemental world of the old Northern European landscape: a place of deep forests, fierce weather, dangerous seacoasts, and human refuges of joyful hearths and homesteads.  This was a world of hunter, warrior, and seafarer families, ail of whom keenly felt their dependence upon forces greater than themselves which could be enjoined by prayer, sacrifice, ritual offerings, and divinatory practices.  The workshop will provide initiatory journeys into the realms of ancient Celtic and Norse deities associated with fate and destiny.

Runework

We will use runework as a gateway to journey into this primal world and into the perennial human conditions that are part of divinatory work in every age.  The runes are an important European tradition of seership.  By journeying into the Old English rune poem as a source of meaning for the runes, we immerse ourselves in the wisdom of the ancient world in which our ancestors lived and struggled to find meaning in their lives.

Requirements for the course are my new booklet Wending Your Way: A New Version of the Old English Rune Poem, available this December or January 2002 and a set of runes which you can make from suggestions in the book.  The cost of the workshop includes the book, and it will be mailed to you when you register.

Prerequisites: Skill at journeying into nonordinary reality and working with power animals.