Saint Lucia Day

13th December is the feast day of Saint Lucia or Sankta Lucia as she is called in my home country of Sweden where this is still a big tradition. It's a tradition that naturally leads up to Jul/Christmas and it involves children and some adults dressing up in white clothing and either swirls of glitter or a crown made of candles on their head and singing carols. Saint Lucia was originally a Sicilian saint and Christian martyr, Lucia of Syracuse. She was killed in the last and worst persecution of Christians in the Roman empire around year 300.

The story goes that Lucia came from a wealthy Christian family but was promised to marry a non-Christian when her father died and the family was without a male guardian. She instead vowed to remain unmarried and to give her dowry to Christians who were hiding from persecution in the catacombs.

Lucia wore a crown of candles to light her way through the underground tunnels and brought food to the people hiding. The man who was meant to marry her subsequently reported her to the Roman authorities and they decided to have her sold into slavery as punishment. The legend has it that the guards who came to arrest her were not able to remove her. They then decided to kill her immediately by pouring oil over her and setting her on fire, but she wouldn't burn. They were finally able to kill her by sword. Later stories say that Lucia foretold the end of persecution before her death.

It's unclear why Saint Lucia's Day has become a lasting tradition in Sweden but it's linked to the Winter Solstice since 13th December used to fall on the Winter Solstice, now 21st December, before the Gregorian calendar was adopted. Being the darkest and coldest part of the year in the Nordic region, the Lucia tradition of lighting lots of candles and eating buns and drinking hot drinks is always welcome. There are also links to the Norse goddess Sol or Sunna who represents the sun, and in this instance the return of lighter days after the darkest days of the year.

Friday 13th is also the day of the Goddess and the celebration of the Divine Feminine, honouring the cycles of creation, death and rebirth.

The Divine Feminine has always been there in all of our different lineages, just under the surface, waiting for us to re-discover it.

May the Divine Feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages...

The Norse people

The Norse, my ancestors, are somewhat elusive just like the Celts. Most of what we know about them come from what was written by visitors and later Christian missionaries, although we do have texts such as the Poetic Edda and the Runic alphabet to help us better understand the beliefs and cosmology of the Norse people. History is as always written by the victorious, which for the Celts became the Roman conquerors. The Norse were converted to Christianity mostly without force but they were some of the last European peoples who converted, in the 11th Century, and Scandinavia was never conquered by the Romans as the British Isles were. 

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The word Norse is often used interchangeably with Vikings. The Viking age was a particular time in Norse history when some people ventured outside of Scandinavia by boat to raid or settle in other European lands, and sometimes beyond, probably because of the harsh life and climate in Scandinavia. The Viking Age started around year 800 AD and continued for more than 200 years. A bronze Buddha statue was found in an old Viking Era settlement in Sweden, which shows that Norse society was not cut off from the rest of the world and influences from other parts of the world were already there. 

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Mainly due to the sometimes brutal raids of the Vikings and the often over exaggerated historical descriptions of them by Christian Europeans, pre-Christian Norse people have been perceived as cruel savages or romanticised as some type of super-humans. Of course neither is the whole truth. We also have to remember that the European Christians at the time who wrote down their accounts of the Norse had preconceived notions about them and may have had their own reasons to portray them as 'uncivilised' and brutal to further the Christianisation of Europe.

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One of the last places to be Christianised in Sweden was in what is now the town of Uppsala, close to where I grew up. Old Uppsala was a pagan spiritual center with a temple. The temple was destroyed and there is now a church and a museum in its place. The below picture of me is taken at that site. The main visible parts of the old pagan site there are the three large grave mounds dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries. 

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A grave of a woman soldier was found in the archeological site of Birka outside of Stockholm. Her remains were found buried with military objects and even animals that suggested she was high up in the ranks. These women warriors have been called shield-maidens and are featured in the television series Vikings. Although the Hollywood depiction might glamourise these people a bit too much, the historical evidence of these warriors, and similar stories about Celtic women, show that the history of women in Europe is not as clear cut as we may think. 

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The practise of Seidr, Norse witchcraft and a type of trance prophecy, was practised almost exclusively by women. It was seen as inappropriate for men to take on this female role. The Norse seer was called a Völva and was highly respected for the connection she had with the otherworld and the information she could bring back. 

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When we connect with our ancestral heritage on a deep level, regardless of where your ancestors are from, I believe we can uncover mysteries and connect with something within us that may has been dormant and wants to be released. 

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I have created a 3 month journey with our Divine Feminine Ancestry and Soul Lineage. Part of this journey is connecting more deeply with our ancestors, ancestral lands and the spiritual traditions that come from them. I will use my own journey with my Scandinavian/Norse ancestry to guide us.

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May the Divine Feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages...

Who Celtic women really were...

Women in Celtic societies had legal rights that far exceeded the rights of women in many other societies at the time and later in history. They acted as judges and mediators in political and military disputes and they could own land and inherit property.

Celtic marriages was viewed as a partnership, as opposed to women being seen as the property of the man in Roman law. Women also had the right to divorce their men if he did not live up to his responsibilities, which included providing enough food and satisfying his wife sexually, or if he treated her badly.

The spiritual leaders in Celtic society were the Druids, who passed down their knowledge strictly through oral tradition. Despite the commonly held idea that Druids were mostly men, there were women Druids who acted as seers and healers.

Celtic women fought wars alongside the men and there are many stories of women warriors who led their people in battle. One of these warriors was Boudica, queen of the Iceni tribe of what is now Eastern England. She led an uprising against the occupying Roman Empire. This has similarities to Norse/Viking culture, which also had women warriors. A Viking woman has been found buried in a military tomb with contents indicating that she was high up in the ranks.

Because Celtic women could inherit land, old Irish law stated that they had an obligation to defend their land and therefore had to do military service or assign a kinsman on her behalf. It was only in year 697 CE that women were banned from warfare.

If you have Celtic and Irish ancestry I am recalling this history to help you see your ancestry with new eyes if you haven't already. Although most of us don't need to physically fight to protect our land or tribes anymore, I want to remind you that despite of the suppression of women in relatively recent history, you come from a lineage of women who held power, warrior queens and priestesses. You can call on the power of these ancestors whenever you need their strength and insights. They are a part of you.

I have created a 3 month journey with our Divine Feminine Ancestry and Soul Lineage. We will connect deeply with our ancestors, our ancestral lands and mythologies. I will use my own journey with my Scandinavian/Norse ancestry to guide us.

Let's rise up rooted...

The Norns - Weavers of fate

The Norns are female beings in Norse mythology who create and control fate. They spin the threads of the fate of both humans and Gods at the foot of Yggdrasil, the cosmic tree holding together the 9 realms in Norse cosmology.

In Völuspá, one of the poems in the Old Norse Poetic Edda, they are described as not being a part of any of the other beings mentioned in Norse Mythology. They are in their own category. Their names are Urd - The Past, Verdandi - What Is Presently Coming Into Being and Skuld - What Shall Be.

Because they control fate they are often feared. I believe the fear is misplaced. I cannot help but to relate them to what I know about the Akashic Records, also called the Book of Life in the Bible. This is also closely related to Karma, or cause and effect.

The Norns weave and record a persons fate, but I don't see fate as being outside of our free will or control. In fact, the word Skuld, which is the name of the third Norn of What Shall Be literally means 'blame' or 'responsibility' in Swedish, my first language. Things happen that seem to be out of our control, but if we look at the picture from a soul level over a course of many lifetimes, we would find that the web of events are related and both the good and the bad are parts of our soul's growth.

Once we become aware of this we can become an active participant in the weaving of our fate and our soul's path.

I have created a 3 month journey where we will connect deeply with our ancestral mythology and the Divine Feminine within it, regardless of where your ancestry is from. I will use my own journey with my Scandinavian/Norse ancestry as a starting point.


May the Divine Feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages...

Art by Johan Egerkrans and Unknown

The Dark Goddess rising...

The Dark Goddess archetypes have significant similarities in different cultures and ancestral lineages, often connected to death and rebirth. She brings death to that which has to fall away for our true divine nature to spring forth. The darkness that she represents is powerful in its own right. It is not merely a lack of light.

The darkness of the Dark Goddess or the Primal Mother has its own life and is where all life, including light, is born. This is why Mother Mary is called the 'Mother of God'. She is one aspect of a primal feminine archetype, the mother of all things, hidden in plain sight within a seemingly patriarchal religion.

The Dark Goddess archetypes are specific personifications of the cosmic mother, the dark void where everything is conceived and that also has the power to destroy. Connecting with the Dark Goddess of our own ancestry is a process of stepping into our sovereignty. What the Dark Goddesses have in common is that they do not place themselves in relation to the masculine. She is sovereign in and of herself.

In Western cultures especially, the Dark Goddess has been demonised. The way that these archetypes have been portrayed in the West have been deeply influenced by institutionalised Christianity as well as patriarchal structures where women themselves are seen as sinful, coinciding with the moving away from Earth based, feminine spirituality and the persecution of witches and women healers. Even in a modern, secular context we can see how the fear of death can contribute to the fear of her. The following Dark Goddess archetypes have been more or less demonised:

Hel - Norse Queen of the Underworld and the dead.

Hekate - Greek Goddess of the night, the moon, witchcraft and necromancy.

The Morrigan - Celtic Raven Goddess of death, war, rebirth and sovereignty.

Lilith - Sumerian Goddess of sexual power, freedom and sovereignty.

From what I can see, this demonisation has not happened to the same extent with the Dark Goddess Kali Ma, who is still largely revered within Hinduism. This is a reflection of how the feminine has been repressed in Europe and the Western world while still revered in the East.

This persecution of the Dark Goddess is slowly being reversed. We are taking back the darkness as sacred, as holy in and of itself. The darkness brings peace and rest and enables us to go inward, to meet with our own inner Dark Goddess. She is not to be feared. She is to be embraced, because often only through encountering her can we lay aside what does not serve and be born anew.

If you would like to connect more deeply to the Dark Goddess archetypes of your ancestry, I have a 3 month offering where we will commune with our Divine Feminine Ancestry and Soul Lineage.

May the Divine Feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages...

The Morrigan - Dark Celtic Raven Goddess of Death and Rebirth

I had a call with my mentor a few days ago. I was called to shift my energy and to start letting go of certain things that I know don't serve me any longer, things that I have been putting off looking at. She told me that she saw one of my guides as a dark goddess with raven energy. I made a note of it and we carried on with the rest of the call.

After the call I got on with the energy shifting homework that she gave me and I didn't think too much about the raven goddess in particular. It was a fleeting comment and although it caught my interest, I put it at the back of my mind. Today, I was watching a Youtube video on the origins of Samhain and All Hallows' Eve. It started telling me about a Celtic raven goddess called The Morrigan. The name rang a bell but I had never looked into her before. The video also suggested that she is a dark goddess. To me a dark goddess has nothing to do with negativity but is someone who can help carry us through transformation and releasing our shadows, even though it's uncomfortable.

She is a goddess of war, destiny, fate, death and rebirth as well as magic. Death and rebirth is what really spoke to me. She is the exact energy that I need in order to move through and embody some of the things my mentor brought up and that my inner guidance has told me about for a long time. I believe that The Morrigan has been with me for some time and showed me who she is through my mentor and the synchronicity of the video that I watched. I have had the desire to know who some of my guides are by name, apart from the ones I already know. When we put the desire out there the information often comes when we least expect it.

May the divine feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages…

Art by Laura Cameron

Eir - Norse Goddess of Healing

Eir is the Norse goddess of healing and medicine. Her name means gracious, helpful and copper (which is a metal often used in healing practices). In early Norse culture medicine was almost exclusively practiced by women, which is why she is a goddess and not a god.

Eir is among the Asynjur (Frigg's attendants) and is the goddess who is present at childbirth, along with Frigg and sometimes Freyja. In Norse Folk tradition Eir was invoked in healing rituals using a white flower known as Eirflower.

Healing methods included healing prayers, magic, midwifery practices (much more advanced than later ones), surgery, herbalism, using copper bracelets, and detoxes using saunas.

Eir is at times compared to the Greek goddess Hygieia and she may be related to the Indo-European Swiss goddess, Erecura, known to the Celtic tradition as Aerucura.

May the divine feminine rise from all ancestry lines and soul lineages…

Frigg - the Allmother

Frigg or Frigga is referred to as the 'foremost among the goddesses' in Norse mythology. She is the queen of Asgard, the land of the gods, and the wife of Odin.

She is mostly associated with the Norse pantheon but she has Germanic counterparts that were worshipped in Britain and on the European continent. The Romans associated Frigg with the goddess Venus, and the planet Venus has been called friggjarstjarna (Frigg's star).

Frigg is the goddess of practical, homely knowledge, fertility, motherhood, love and marriage. It's easy to understand how in recent times the more seemingly independent minded Freyja has become the most popular Norse goddess to refer to. I believe it's because in modern Western society, the traditionally feminine attributes that Frigg is associated with are not seen as independently valuable.

If we understand that in another time in history these areas of life were most likely highly sacred and revered. These feminine areas of life and knowledge are intrinsically valuable and may even be more important or fundamental than the traditionally masculine parts of life that society is now holding up as more important.

Even so, the story goes that Frigg is very involved in political affairs of Asgard and shared the throne with Odin, overlooking the Nine Worlds. This could be a reflection of Germanic societies in history where the responsibilities of a noblewoman included acting as a counsellor to her husband and as a peace-keeper and diplomat. In other words, the feminine role as the 'protector of the home' included a lot more than what we might imagine now.

Frigg has her own dwelling called Fensalir (Hall of Mists or Sea Halls), which she manages. She also oversees the Asynjur, a group of goddesses or deities with different attributes and roles. They are sometimes described as being different aspects of Frigg. She has connections to the Earth and in some respects is seen as an Earth goddess, but not of wild nature but instead of lands that are cultivated.

When we look beneath the surface of some of the divine feminine archetypes in our ancestral cultures, we realise that there is so much more to them than commonly believed. They have so many dimensions to them and they are powerful beyond measure, just as we are.

Connecting to these goddesses and deities can help bring out more of the divine feminine power within ourselves that has sometimes been forgotten.

Art by Amanda Lindupp

Why ancestors and ancestral lands are important in spiritual work

To really deepen into our spiritual path, we cannot skip over working with our ancestors and ancestral lands. There are good reasons why indigenous and pagan spiritual traditions work with ancestors as an integral part of rituals and practices.

These practises have been mostly lost in the major institutional religions, which have in many cases dismissed it as ‘ancestor worship’, putting a stigma on these age old practices, although there are still traces of it left such as All Saints’ Day in Christianity.

Many of our ancestors want nothing more than to help and guide us and they are ready to assist whenever we call on them. They want to help us release and move beyond limitations and beliefs that they were unable to let go of during there time on earth, and they are now seeing things from a higher perspective. They want us to release the density and old thought forms so that they can be released through us. Some wounds and limiting beliefs that we carry may be from other lives or this life but some can just as likely be ancestral wounds.

I have found that many of my patterns and limitations surrounding money, work and responsibility is inherited from grandparents and great-grandparents. I couldn’t understand where my pattern of feeling responsible for others and not asking for financial or practical help came from. This is until I spoke to my parents about how my grandmother used to in effect support her family by working nights at a hospital while at the same time carrying out all of the house and childcare duties. She kept her head down and didn't ask or expect help. Although this is showing up slightly differently for me, it's the same pattern. There are rituals and release work that we can undertake to release these patterns and your ancestors will thank you for doing this.

I am also convinced that some souls or aspects of a soul may incarnate into the same bloodline or family tree several times. Although our oversoul and where our souls have been is not necessarily connected to our current blood ancestry, I believe parts of us are inextricably linked to our biological family trees and even to the lands that our blood ancestors inhabited.

My ancestors on my father’s side are from a region of Sweden called Dalarna (meaning The Valleys). We have an old family farm, in one of the villages in this region, passed down through many generations, with two cottages and lots of cherry trees. I used to spend most of my summers there as a child. Whenever I go there I feel a sense of belonging to the earth and the lands, and a groundedness that I don’t easily feel elsewhere. I often long to go there if I have been away for too long.

My feelings of belongingness to this place is not just cultural. There are other parts of Sweden that I have spent more time in, but that don’t have the same magnetism for me. I am convinced that it has to do with our DNA being linked to certain lands. I hear stories of people having a strong experience when visiting some of their ancestral lands for the first time. Again, it’s not cultural belonging as such since you might not have grown up with the culture of that place. Culture is on the surface level. This feeling is much more deep and rooted. It’s our DNA resonating with certain places. This can also happen on a soul level in terms of ‘past’ lives.

Ancestry is integral to the spiritual awakening process. How can we be rooted if we don’t connect to our DNA lineage in some way, and if we are not first rooted in our ancestral stories, how can we heal the wounds that we carry for our ancestors and look to ascend them? For those of us who live in parts of the world where the ancestors of the lands are not our own, you can still pray to and honour the ancestors of the lands you are on. They can help you to connect to your own ancestors.


May the divine feminine rise from all ancestry lines...✨

We are multidimensional Beings

I recently had a past life and soul hypnotherapy session where the facilitator guides you to a state where you speak through your soul or higher self. I saw one other human life and one life where I was a being that was definitely not of the 3D dimension and not human, as we know it at least.

I realised during the session that the human life I saw was not in itself significant for me to know about, other than to realise how I do not want to live and to not put the same limitations on myself that previous incarnations have had in other lifetimes.

The other lifetime I saw felt more significant and this might have been because it was a bit more ‘out there’. This life was supposedly an earlier one, although time and space are ultimately illusions so the timeline might not matter that much. In this part of the session I looked down on myself and the facilitator asked me to describe what I saw. What I did see was hard to describe, to say the least, and I was struggling to find the words to explain. I was a blue being and instead of actual feet I looked down on blue slim limbs that seemed boneless and were floating, rather than standing, in a blue space. The closest I have to describe the weightlessness of the space and my body was that I was in water, which might have been the case. I was also wearing some type of floaty blue fabric.

I was asked to look around me at the surroundings and any other beings that might be with me. I saw another being who seemed to look just like me. She had a blue face, I say she because the energy felt very feminine but androgynous at the same time, dark friendly eyes and a small mouth. She was wearing a type of crown or tiara that seemed to be a part of her body and a floaty robe or dress. The blue space around us was vast and there was both lighter and darker blue as far as I could see.

After my session finished and I sat up again, a bit dazed after the hypnosis, the facilitator (a lovely healer called Charmian Redwood) told me that in the middle of the session the video recording started showing a blue light arching over my body. I asked her to send me the recording so that I could see it for myself since I was curious, and there it was, a strong indigo/blue/violet arch. It could be the camera lens creating it from some of the sunlight coming through my half closed blinds, but it has never happened in any other Skype or Zoom call I have had and the colour was striking. I left that to be unknown…

I describe these experiences during this session not to impress anyone or to make myself special, but to tell you from my own experience that we are multidimensional souls, here to integrate this multidimensionality into this life and this body, to embody our fullest potential as light workers. We are meant to live as close to our soul as possible while still going through human experiences. I would like to do this together with you, because we are many who have come back at this time for a particular purpose, to remember our multidimensional selves and to remember our oneness with all that is and our origins as light beings.

A Course in Miracles teaches that we think we have many problems but we really only have one, and that is our perceived separation from God.

Art from Lemurian Starchild Oracle painted by Leanne Carpenter

Mother Mary and the Wild feminine subconscious

If you think of Mother Mary in terms of the benign virgin and mother figure of religious Christian iconography, someone who does not not threaten the status quo and keep women in line, think again. Mother Mary is a version of the Wild Mother that lives in the wild feminine subconscious. She is the force that leads us through our darkest nights and births the Christ consciousness from within us. This Christ consciousness is not a soft, naive love that conforms to societal norms and expectations. No, the Christ consciousness that she births is what will transform this world and birth a new paradigm.

This is already happening. Old paradigms and dogmas, both collectively and individually, are falling and burning. This is not always a pretty sight and can feel tumultuous and traumatic at times. Mother Mary is there to lead us through this. She is one manifestation of this feminine shadow guide archetype and maybe the most outwardly benign one. But make no mistake, she means business.

Other Wild Mother archetypes are Hel - Norse queen of the underworld and Kali - The Divine Mother or Dark Mother in Hinduism. You might relate to one or more of these guides at different times and depending on your background and ancestry. Mother Mary can help us with the journey of letting go and destroying what does not serve us any longer and rebirthing the new, while all along maintaining a fierce unconditional love for us that will see us through the darkness.

With this in mind the traditional Christian prayer dedicated to Mary takes on a whole different meaning to me:

Hail Mary
Full of Grace
The Lord is with thee
Blessed art thou
among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus,
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
Pray for us sinners
now, and at the hour
of our death
Amen

How I found that the Folk Magic of my ancestors is intertwined with the rituals of my Christian forebearers

In some parts of my spiritual journey I have found a type of ‘either or’ mentality when it comes to religion and alternative spirituality, especially magic and spell-work, as if they are diametrically opposed. That you’re either a witch or a Christian. You can’t pick a bit from both as you please.

But last year when I started to seriously look into the folk magic of my own ancestors I found that the two are intertwined and even inseparable. I am not religious, but I grew up with Christianity and I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Christianity is a part or my heritage, upbringing and ancestry.

In many of the Trolldom spells and remedies of Scandinavia that I have read about and am starting to learn, traditional folk practices are mixed with Christian incantations and prayers. In one of the spells to remediate the theft of courage you stir a glass of alcohol nine times with a metal knife while reading a spell that asks the Mara to leave the person while the holy trinity is invoked (Mara being the entity that is causing the sadness or theft of courage). This is followed by saying the Christian prayers ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’ three times each. Note how both the holy father and the holy mother is invoked to create a balance using both the sacred masculine and divine feminine in the spell.

These are the practices that were also shunned by the church at the time. Although Christian saints and prayers were invoked and used in the spells, in the eyes of the church they were not to be used in that way. Healing was not to be undertaken outside of religion. The church was the way that you had to go through to connect to God and spirit in the church’s opinion at the time.

Of course these archetypes and energies are powerful and that is why they were and are used by Trolldom practitioners as well as in other folk magic traditions such as Hoodoo. I would even say that magic and spells are being practiced inside churches all of the time. The Christian readings and prayers, if said while meaning it, are powerful spells. The lighting of candles in churches while sending prayers to someone are candle spells. The holy communion is a ritual to invoke the Christ consciousness within.

Becoming more grounded in my own spirituality and moving away from organised religion has made me more deeply understand and appreciate the underlying true meanings of these rituals to a point when I can even participate in them without having to call myself a Christian.

Seek first the kingdom of God...

When I first started being conscious about my spiritual path around 6 years ago I didn't have any Tarot decks or Oracle cards. I didn't set up an altar or call in any particular deities or angels. I didn’t spend money on courses or join online spiritual communities. I didn’t have countless books on spirituality yet or burn incense every day.

The one thing I did do, and what I attribute me being led to all of these other things to, was meditate.

I had started following some holistic health bloggers because I was really interested in nutrition and holistic health. One of them mentioned that she meditates every morning. I had never tried and and thought I would give it a go.

All I did was to regularly sit down on the floor or on my sofa or bed, close my eyes and be quiet for about 10-15 minutes at first. I didn't follow any particular technique. Since then I have learnt Transcendental Meditation but I still sometimes use my own quiet meditation.

It didn’t take long for me to realise why meditation is a good idea. Not only did it clear my mind and made me more calm and much less stressed in my daily activities, which is reason enough to do it. I also often found myself in moments of complete bliss during meditation and felt a light, floating sensation and experienced that I am so much more than my physical body. I felt a sense of complete love and safety, hard to find in the physical ‘reality’.

As time went by and I continued to meditate every day, I found that I sometimes had this feeling even while going about activities and being around other people. I started noticing synchronicities and came across things that would become useful spiritual tools for me. One of those things was A Course in Miracles.

Fast forward a few years, I am now practising Tarot, spell-work and magic, learning Astrology, reading a lot of books on different spiritual topics and I’m continuing to study and also teach A Course in Miracles. I am following several spiritual coaches and teachers and have become one myself. I have also tried different meditation techniques and learnt Reiki healing and I communicate with my guides and angels daily.

I have been led to all of these things from connecting with my inner being, what can be called the kingdom of God if we want to get biblical.

What has always been consistent through all of this is my meditation practise. Without it, I can forget about any of these divination tools, techniques or books and I can certainly forget about trying to guide or help others in their spiritual work. Without going inwards in meditation and connecting to my ‘right mind’ or true being, all of these other things are distractions and paraphernalia.

So if I would give any advice for someone starting out and wondering where they should look and what they should read or do, look no further than yourself. Sit down on a chair, sofa, bed or floor and be still.

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)

5 ways to start connecting to your divine feminine ancestry

1. Do an ancestry DNA test. This is most important if you are unsure of your ancestry. When you are aware of your blood ancestry you can start researching the rich spiritual traditions feminine archetypes of your ancestral lines.

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2. Find female archetypes/deities from your ancestral cultures' mythologies. Once you have done your initial research you can start connecting with these figures more deeply through meditations, path working and prayer.

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3. Research the lives of the women in your blood ancestry. There are amazing and often hidden stories from the lives of the women in our ancestry. Ask parents/grandparents and older relatives about what they remember from their own lives as well as about people they remember.

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4. Have an akashic reading or past life regression session to discover your soul ancestry or what I like to call cosmic ancestry. I believe many of us have had lives in other dimensions and on other planets. 👽✨

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5. Last but not least, connect to our womb and ground into your body and the earth as often as you can!

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The ancestral spirits are calling us. Let's answer...

Skogsrå and Sjörå - Guardian Spirits of the Forest and the Lake

I have always felt that there is a mystical presence in the forest, as if you are not completely alone, even when there is no one else around. This presence is quite different from other guides, spirits and angels that I connect with during my meditations and work. It can be difficult to pinpoint and still very tangible and highly ‘felt’. There is a similar but slightly different presence when I’m by a lake or by the sea. It installs a feeling of respect as if I know that I’m in the domain of something or someone else where I as a human need to be vigilant and show respect.

In Swedish Folklore my blood ancestors named this presence and personified it as the Skogsrå (skog = forest, rå = guardian/keeper). The Skogsrå or Mistress of the Forest is depicted as a partially human looking female but with a hollowness in her back, like a hollow tree trunk, and usually with a tail. She can also be depicted as part tree, part woman.

She is benevolent if you show respect to her and the forest, which she is the guardian of. If you walk through a forest and ask the Skogsrå for protection by honouring her and the forest and maybe even give an offering, she can protect you from harm. If you do not show respect for the forest and even harm it, she can make you unsafe. After all, she is there to guard the forest and protect it from harm.

There are other guardian spirits, guarding other parts of the natural landscape, such as the Sjörå = Mistress of the Lake and Havsrå = Mistress of the Sea. They are also depicted as female energies. There are some male nature and farm spirits in Scandinavian Folklore. However for the forest, the lake and the sea I feel it’s appropriate to see them as feminine energies and as aspects of the great earth mother. They can also be seen as ‘elementals’ instead of spirits or as nature deities, which is something that many cultures have in their mythologies in different forms. Examples of other comparable nature spirits are Aranyani - goddess of the forests and forest animals in Hinduism, Aja - Yoruba orisha and patron of the forest, the animals within it and herbal healers, Nymphs - nature spirits in Greek mythology.

The Scandinavian female nature spirits used to be seen as somewhat sexually deviant and as creatures who lured men, and some women, with their seductive powers. This portrayal has lived on but when folklore beliefs were still alive in the larger society and the church, this could have real consequences. There are stories of people being punished by law for having sexual encounters with female or male nature spirits. Both men and women were accused of this around the 17th and 18th centuries in Sweden. I believe that the established church and society was afraid of what they could not control. Forces of nature are powerful and uncontrollable I cannot help but to make parallels to attempts to control female sexuality.

By reconnecting to these beautiful personifications of nature in our own ancestral cultures we can reconnect to the natural forces themselves and to our own nature and sacred sexuality and power.

Sculpture by Nymla

The Rainbow Bridge, the nine worlds and our Cosmic Ancestry

The rainbow bridge has been mentioned in several teachings I have been following. The teachings I refer to are seemingly unrelated spiritual teachings and mythologies, although us light-workers know that nothing is unrelated or a coincidence. The rainbow bridge is called Bifrost in the Norse mythology of my ancestry and is the bridge connecting Midgård and Asgård, the Earth/human realm and the sky/god realm.

In Bringers of the Dawn: Teachings from the Pleiadians by Barbara Marciniak, a book that has changed my spiritual life, it says that “The energies from the cosmos are always coming to Earth, and the energies from Earth are always lifting up toward the cosmos. Humanity creates the sacred bridge between Earth and sky, which some have called the rainbow bridge. The Bringers of the Dawn allow these energies to merge so that the dawn, or the light, is awakened within them.”

I have come across some who refer to Bifrost as the energy wheels or chakras within humans, whose colours make up the colours of the rainbow. It is one of the means by which we can download cosmic information and messages from spirit and also raise the earth energies upwards. You see, I don’t only look at the words sky and Earth as metaphors for the ‘unseen’ spirit world and the seen world, although this can also be true. I believe that when we look at the night sky with its star clusters and constellations, we are literally gazing into different dimensions and realities and feeling those worlds or dimensions beaming their energies towards the earth. It is up to us to receive it. We are also beaming our energies out into the cosmos. It’s a type of communication of information and light exchange. Bear with me because it’s about to get a whole lot weirder.

Norse mythology talks about nine worlds or realms held together by the tree Yggdrasil. Midgård and Asgård are two of those worlds, Midgård beings the 3D reality of Earth. Several sources that I have come across also talks about nine dimensions in relation to different star systems and the various beings that reside in them. The Pleiades star cluster is something that we can see in the night sky. They are also called the Seven Sisters.

I am in the process of connecting with my ancestry, be it cosmic and soul ancestry, blood ancestry or divine feminine spirit ancestry. I invite you to join me on this journey.

Mother Mary/Maria - Shadow Guide

Mother Mary is an intriguing figure to me. She is the mother of Jesus Christ, but what does this mean symbolically and mythologically?

As a reader of symbols and signs, I see her as one who guides souls through their ‘dark night of the soul’. In the song Let It Be it says:

“When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me.

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me.

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

In other words, let the darkness be. Don’t try to suppress it or sprinkle fairy dust on it. The darkness is sacred. It and Mother Mary will eventually give birth to the the Christ within.

Without the darkness and without confronting our shadows, this birth will not happen. We need to embrace and accept all aspects of ourselves, including the shadows, to become whole. So she is not only a nurturing mother figure. She is also a shadow guide asking us to feel our shadows fully. She holds a compassion and love for us through this, even when we don’t feel worthy of it. This is the strength of ‘The Immaculate Heart of Mary’.

Without her, there is no birth of Christ. Christ being our inner knowing of oneness and love. There are of course other figures with different names who symbolically represent this dynamic. Mother Mary is one name and representation for this energy and one that I connect with.

Jesus - Christ/Yeshua - Ascended Master and Guide

Growing up in a Christian family, I have had a relationship with Jesus since I was young, although I could never fully relate to the traditional Christian way of perceiving him.

For me he was someone who became fully identified with spirit while still in an earthly body and can therefore show others how to do the same as a spirit guide and teacher. He is not the only one who has done this and we all have the potential for it.

In A Course in Miracles his role is described like this:

“The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God.”

“Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you.”

“Is he God’s only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognised.”

When I connect with my spirit guides and angels, I don’t ‘see’ them or ‘hear’ them like some might do. Instead I feel them. I have come to recognise the different feelings and vibrations of specific helpers that I work with regularly.

Archangel Michael, along with other angels, gives me a light feeling very much connected to the higher energy centers around my head (although I have also felt my solar plexus activating when connecting with Archangel Michael).

Freja gives me a grounded feeling in my body, connected to strong boundaries and the lower chakras, sacral and root.

I remember once connecting with Jesus Christ strongly during meditation. The feeling I got was of a warm blanket of compassion and unconditional love enveloping me. The part of me that felt most connected was my heart. When my heart center is opening I feel compassion and unconditional love flowing from me and to me and a pleasant pressure on my chest. My eyes also tear up easily.

Jesus can help to connect us to our heart chakra/center, which connects us to ur inner Christ selves. There are other guides that can help with this and Jesus is not the only one. For me, he is someone I have been guided to connect with deeply since I was a child but have only realised as an adult in what way. I will continue to connect with him as one of my closest guides.

Völva - The Norse seer

A Völva (Volva) is a Norse female seer and practitioner of psychic abilities, seidr and witchcraft. The Völva has also been described as a prophetess and a priestess. In my view, a Völva is a certain type of healer. As those of us who are consciously practising spells, intuitive abilities and some forms of witchcraft know: it’s ultimately about healing. Another word used in traditional Norse texts is Sejdkona. Seidr (sejd in Swedish) is a type of trance prophecy where the practitioner induces an altered state of mind in order to communicate directly with the spirit world or to journey into the ‘other side’ bringing back information.

Völvas were highly respected in old Norse society and could travel between farms and always find somewhere to stay because of the sought after services they provided. They were often travelling and would be women who did not have their own set family obligations, but instead dedicated their lives to helping others, through their abilities.

Despite often being talked about in a past tense, the Völva is alive and well in different forms than the traditional ones. Female seers from all traditions are awakening and again realising our powers. It’s part of our individual and collective divine feminine ancestries and cannot be taken away. It’s in our being.

Freja - Norse Goddess of Love, Magic and War

Freja or Freyja (Old Norse for “the Lady”) is an intriguing Norse goddess. She is the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality and she is also said to have had the task of bringing back the dead from war along with her valkyries (helpers). On top of this she is also the goddess to call on for help with Seidr (Norse Witchcraft) and magic spells. The impression I have from the research I have done on Freja and the meditations I have experiences with her is that she is a powerful, protective force to be reckoned with.

I have been told by more experienced practitioners of Norse Witchcraft and rituals that the Norse energies and deities are not known for their subtlety. They are very direct. This is how I have experienced Freja so far. One of the first times I meditated on/with her it had been a stressful and tiring day. When I sat down for my meditation my thoughts were elsewhere and my breathing was quite shallow. Within a second of whispering the name Freja my breaths automatically became very long, deep and powerful as if someone was breathing for me. I look forward to more experiences with Freja and guidance from her.