Ræveðis: Galdr, Spå & Seiðr - Kærlighedsstave (A love spell) On a Thursday by the full moon; go to a field, and gather nine blooming yarrows. Paint the stave, with your own blood, onto a thick piece of paper, and let the flowers dry upon it until Freyas day on the waxing moon. On that day, tie the flowers with 13 inches of kobber (copper) thread, and hang them above the bed of your loved one. Then he or she, will dream of you under the light of the moon.
Seiðr is largely about intent, Spaework (trance journeying to the underworld) and chanting galdr (glossolalic spell and incantation) is part of the practice of weaving worlds into existence through action and intent, manifestation through manipulation using nature and the power of animism and wyrd.
The word Wyrd itself comes from the high germanic root word 'wurt' and Old Norse urðr, (urðr and ørlög), the Proto-Indo-European root is wert, “to turn or rotate”, otherwise wirþ in Common Germanic, “to come to pass, to become, to be due”, also weorþ, the notion of "worth" in both material gains and in concepts of honor.
Norse magic and shamanism is concerned with discerning the course of fate and working within its structure to bring about change, which was done by symbolically weaving new events into being.
Explanation of the practice from a Seiðr witch.
"The primary use of seiðr is to manipulate another. Sjónhverfing, deceiving of the sight, is an incredible example of manipulation magic.
Along with illusions of the mind, one can manipulate the thoughts and actions of another. This can either be through sympathetic magic (such as the use of effigies) or directly through journeying.
Spinning
Within my practice I use a distaff and spindle. My distaff is a cage distaff and my spindle is just a simple drop spindle. I believe in the use of incorporating my önd, or my breath, into all that I wish to manifest. The same way I chanted, gave breath to my runes, and colored them with my blood – the same applies to anything else I wish to give life to or to manifest. Our breath is a vessel that can hold everything we wish to manifest that can be imbued into an object, or in the case of spinning, a cord.
While the act of spinning doesn’t qualify as a practice of seiðr, what becomes of it does. You can spin a cord with the intent of attracting something to you (even something as mundane as a job), to heal someone, or to even curse someone.
The ritual and the intent is what makes the magic work, not the simple act of spinning. If you are spinning a cord that interferes with someone’s fate, be very careful. Tangling up in someone else’s fate (and thus tangling your own) is tricky to get out of.
When one speaks of seiðr, one might usually think of the shamanic aspect of the practice first such as trance work, journeying, channeling, and so on.
Journeying is the act of “faring forth” into the nine worlds. This practice can be tremendously useful for receiving visions, manipulating the outcome of an event, and even communing with the gods or your ancestors. One can even lay a potent curse on another during a trance.
The act of channeling a deity can be done during a trance as well, and is a practice that is incredibly draining. While deities don’t make themselves available to humans as often as some people make it seem, when they do, receiving their direct messages can be a life changing experience.
One may also intertwine spá-craft with trance work. If you are not a spákona or spámaðr, you can take this time during your trance state to call upon the help of spirits to aid you in oracular work and receive information regarding any fate based inquiry."
And from antiquity...
"In finding the definition of seidr in antiquity, although some accounts refer to seidr as being feminine and unmanly, there are as many accounts of male seidr workers as there are female, although the male accounts are more focused on sorcery and the female on prophecy"
Excerpt from: Old Norse Images of Women: Jochens
Norse Pagan Seidr (pronounced 'say-th') practice is the way of Ice & Fire.
There is ALWAYS balance, it is about initiation into the underworld where there is no bias or favour between the genders. This is how judgement and culture has diluted original truths on both sides. You come FULLY with connection or you don't. That is all
Seiðr
Of these terms, seiðr is the most common, as well as the most difficult to define. The term seiðr is most commonly translated as "witchcraft," and is used to describe actions ranging from shamanic magic (such as spirit journeys, magical healing by removing "spirit missiles" such as elf-shot from the body, magical psychiatric treatment in the form of recovering lost portions of the soul-complex, etc.), to prophecy, channeling the gods or the gods' voices through a human agent, performing magic that affects weather or animal movements, as well as a wide range of malefic magic.
The single most characteristic element of seiðr, however, seems to be magic of a type which works by affecting the mind by illusion, madness, forgetfulness or other means. The practitioner of seiðr was known as a seið-kona (seið-wife) or seið-man, but these terms tended to suggest a "black magician," so that frequently a seið-worker is called a spá-kona or spae-wife instead to avoid blackening their name with the negative connotations of seiðr.
This "politically correct" title usage for the seið-worker has resulted in much confusion over the types of native Scandinavian magic since the categories between seiðr and spá became blurred by later writers. seiðr could give the worker knowledge of the future, but rather than directly perceiving ørlög or fate, as a spá-kona or völva would, the seið-practitioner summoned spirits to communicate the knowledge of the future. Other terms in common use for those practicing seiðr include fjölkunnigr-kona, "full-cunning-wife, knowledgeable women" and hamhleypa, "hamingja-leaper, shape- or skin-changer" (Simpson, 183).
Seiðr was a solitary art, where the seið-witch was not a member of a coven, as in found in other European witch traditions, although a seið-practitioner might have attendants or a chorus to assist her in the practice of her magic. In a very few rare instances only do the sagas report a group of seið-workers practicing together, there they are usually kin folk, such as a pair of sisters, a father and his family, and the like (Ellis-Davidson, 37-38).
Galdr
Galdr is a call to war. A call to the universal intelligence, the summoning of archetypal forces (Courage, Truth, Honor, Justice) within the realms of the spirit that feed the body, the essence of the FIRE that moves and creates in our inner wild exhalting our WILL onto the prima materia.
The impetus of manifestion from pure potential, to manipulate and/or facilitate new realities to open, from the spiritual realms into physicality, by the power of the tongue, the voice and the breath which is LIFE expressed, extracted, and grounded without judgement into the fertile creatrix-- consciousness.
Galdr is the raw, primal call from the wilderness of the soul, a reaching out from the deepest depth of the darkest realms of pure power within. We become the mirrors of cosmology.
As above So below
Galdr is the sound spectrum of magic with all its octaves and nuances; Spá and Seiðr is the vision.
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