tsahiksroost

[tsahiksroost]

A small sacred act is to let nature be nature.

This year, we have laid seeds on the front of the house, and on the back of it. We have watched over the months how these weeds turn from seeds to nigh identical little sproutlings, to distinctive beginnings of mature leaves, to stems and buds. Today, our first forget-me-nots are finally beginning to bloom, and nature has cast us showers after a long draught.

Our back garden was trampled. "They are only weeds", we were told. But they are not weeds to us nor are they weeds to all things that crawl and feed on their leaves and blossoms. They are not weeds to bees, whom visit their flowers, and in their feet and their fur carry the necessary ingredients for the flowers of next year.

It is June, and the sun is high, and the nights are barely dark, and in no time, there will be no night, and the day will be its longest. We have not looked up many of the plants we have sown, beyond the initial choices made when picking seeds that are native to this land and good for its living things, and their preference of soil, the toughest and humblest for the gravel of the front and the hardy but more sensitive for the newly made soil on the back.

When pondering, "what could this be?" Sharing with our own mother, her response, "they're only weeds", and our reminder, "they're all only weeds - this is why we bought the seeds - but each will flower and be beautiful on their own", the measures we've had to go to protect them from others who think them mere weeds, a reminder, hopefully, to all that weeds do bloom the same.

If the fatigue ever shifts then we will walk the lot again and see what other nooks and corners of ours have began to sprout buds and flower by now. The seeds were scattered in all the places that machine blades can't reach or which are discarded as wasteland. Ditches, corners of the electrical box standing at the crossroads. Unkept flowerbeds. About the piles of fall leaves, and on the edges of the compost spread.

There'll be a wait of another two years or so before most of them have sprouted and bloomed. Yearlings come and go, the perennials still lie in wait.

Watching as seasons tempt in those we have invited, and knowing how much this bothers those who'd like to keep the lawn tidy and simple and grow only plants that are fine and have a price, is endlessly calming and feels like vengeance when none other can be taken.

[tsahiksroost]

A bird of prey (hawk?) flying over an arid tundra or a steppe. Perspective from above, only a brief glimpse.

[tsahiksroost]

2023 cultivate a childlike sense of wonder

2023 spend more time alone in nature

2023 look up at the sky

[tsahiksroost]

With the help of friends, one of the first steps I firmly took upon exploring my spiritual connection further was to buy a traditional hand drum. Of course I can't afford a "real" shamanic drum, but I realised that all of that is still just commercial nonsense, be it by a legitimate artist with a spiritual view of their work. Ultimately, it isn't about how the drum is made, or if it's been painted by someone whose belief system I don't know and might not agree with. What I have, in my music store bought simple traditional shamanic drum, is a blank slate.

I tried decorating it last night - making my own marks on it. At first, it went great, and then it didn't. I tried a lot of things, some of which worked and some that didn't, and then washed all of it off. Luckily, archival ink is not waterproof on goat skin. I'll continue cultivating the sketches that felt right on paper, and I'll do it until I know what I want. For now, I've learned.

I've only used it once. Like I learned quickly with tarot, tapping into the spiritual is exhausting. There are very few days I feel both rested enough and mentally clear enough to engage with it. It wasn't much, not a real ceremony of any sort, just a moment for us to get to know each other. A celebration of coming together.

At this point, I'd read nothing about... any of this. And after reading some afterwards, I'm not sure if I want to make more of a mark that way. Like I mentioned in the introduction, I'm disappointed by the fact that there seems to be no way to go about this path that isn't appropriating from cultures that I don't belong to. As much as I respect indigenous spirituality, those do not belong to me, and I don't want to participate unless I am explicitly, in the moment, invited to by people who can extend such an invitation. Internet cannot, and I am not interested in receiving any such "help" from sources who I can't independently confirm or investigate. I know enough about how eager specifically some white people are to chase down indigenous wisdom and morph it into their own uses, with their own accompanying excuses on why they have the right to that culture and those practices. Sage smudging comes to mind.

I desperately want to look inwards on this. I want to look backwards, too, to my own history - the history of my ancestors, right here, on my plot of land, where we have been since the great migration of mankind from Africa took us this far north. We have a culture, a history, a belief system; we have roots here. I'm not here to be sold bastardisations of the ancestral beliefs of other peoples who did not agree to sell them. I want to connect specifically, for now exclusively, with what is mine.

And as it looks - the only thing that is truly mine is what I have inside. It is not a good place to begin exploring something that for my people, all peoples, used to be communal, to be shared. But for the purity of my own connection, if I have to isolate to begin, then I will. Of course this doesn't make me immune to influence. By now, I've already internalised 30 years of media and hearsay about what it means to be looking to nature and the oneness of everything for answers and connection. I will inevitably borrow or steal from resources that were never meant for me. It bothers me, but I can't undo it anymore. What I've learned and what I feel now are inseparable until I understand it all better. The best I can do, for now, is simply to avoid willingly muddying the waters further. I will read about what is not for me, but I will not read recommendations. I will hear what people have to say about their beliefs, but I will not listen to offers. What is yours is yours. What is mine is mine. This is how I want to start.

However, upon my brief and entirely disappointing review of easily accessible "local" material for spiritual practices, particularly shamanism, it gave me one really important insight: what I experienced during this small celebration that was to connect me and my drum together was significant. What I saw and what I felt and what I sang was important. It needed to be written down. I didn't know this at the time, which retrospectively seems silly. I don't know what I expected all that to have been.

My guide is a massive black wolf with yellow eyes and discoloured markings on his fur, specifically ashen grey fur on his paws and along the left side of his chest and down his belly. I call him "he" because this is what I feel, but calling him her instead, or naming him Mother, would not be any less correct. Standing before him, I am the size and spirit of a child. The earth is covered in snow, and I am a few hundred metres away from home. It's a crossroads I know well, by a field I know well, and a now-gone forest I felt was sacred as a child. Which on its own is ironic; the trees were imports, foreign to the country. "Not from here." But the silence and cover they offered always felt magical, a sensation and reverence I now recognise as the same I feel in sacred places.

The forest was not there, not in my view, but the location is special only because of this forest, and the vastness that opens across the road, the direction from which the Mother greeted me. I only realised this after these visions, but I've always regarded that field as the edge of all that is known, and the forest the boundless beyond. I don't know where the forest ends. I don't even know what direction it goes in. I just know that every time I've been there, there is only one direction out of it: back to where I came from. This, too, is significant.

The words that I heard, repeated, accepted were: "The child lies in wait beneath the snow."

The child is myself, waiting to claw my way out to finally see what's around me. To finally see, full stop; to hear, to smell, to know.

To end this, I want to say that my first reaction to being greeted by a black wolf (discoloured or otherwise) was to feel embarrassed. I can't imagine telling that to anybody else and them not rolling their eyes with just how corny that is.

But I don't have to tell them. And maybe I won't. With that - today, I've made up my mind about my name, too. Now I just have to send an application to have the name change approved.

[tsahiksroost]

I greet you. Welcome. 👋

About me: I have not chosen a name, but you can call me Rain.

This body is a vessel to many souls, none more extraordinary than others, none a deity, none a supernatural force from the outside, but each wise and unwise in their own ways.

We are all looking for a way to connect deeper, and ways to see, to understand. Though mature enough in the ways of the world, in spirit we are a child, a youngling opening its eyes for the first time.

This is where I will record the thoughts, the observations we'll make along our journey. This'll be a digital notebook, if you will. That's about as much as I know for now. We'll see what else it becomes.

About the blog: You may recognise the reference in the blog's title. It's light-hearted - I've chosen the title to use for what I am and the way I practice, because what the name refers to is unclaimed, not real, part of a popular story. Upon taking my very first steps, I explored shamanism in my region, and was disappointed to learn that the modern movement here follows a "pan-shamanistic" approach rather than a more specific form of shamanism that is culturally and historically our own. I have no interest in further stealing, appropriating, or colonising specifically indigenous spiritual practices, and knowing that the local shamanistic movement would heavily "borrow" (steal) from those, I've chosen to step aside from that path before starting.

It leaves me very alone where I am, and I didn't know what to call myself. Tongue in cheek, I have chosen to borrow from fiction for now, until I know better what I am or will be, or should be called instead. I also feel that the title embodies the core values for my own spirituality: a connection and oneness with nature, revering my roots in the earth, and my duty and privilege to listen to the planet, to learn from everything around me. I want to touch my fingers to the ground and connect to it so that I can feel the life that is in everything, and breathe alongside our world, seen and unseen.

Finally, I hope that one day, we'll find others to exchange thoughts with.

Quickly: - Finnish - LGBT - Born in 1991. (31 at the time of writing.) - Non-denominational (not wicca, not new age, not witch, etc.) - Non-pagan: paganism is a word that implies a hierarchy between pagan and non-pagan religions. I know others reclaim it and some use it ironically, this is a personal preference; I don't feel that using this word for myself is necessary or productive for my journey at this time. Equipment: - A body and spirits (non-alcoholic, familial) - Drum - Tarot cards