By Sarenth Óðinsson, Board Member of Crossing Hedgerows
The world is alive. This is especially easy to know at Crossing Hedgerows. You can feel life pulsing beneath your feet, even in the midst of Winter. There is life. Perennial food crops and flowers around the farm are coming back to life, with shoots beginning to pop up, and fruit blossoms preparing to open. The greenhouse is thriving with green interspersed with the decay of the last hops and tomato vines. You can hear the chickens, the redwing blackbirds, the crows, and countless other birds all around. The tree leaves are preparing to unfold, and everything has this feeling of coming to readiness about it.
I love walking in the woods almost any time of year. I find it peaceful, connective, and there is a satisfaction in a good walk through it. For the best walk, I recommend Muck boots if you want to walk through all of them. The wet times of the year make them, or a similarly made boot, a near necessity. The squelch of mud, the scrape and solidity of the rock, and the snapping of branches underfoot is a good feeling, something that travels all the way up my legs.
I tend to light a sacred pipe and smoke while I walk. I start with prayers to the pipe itself, then to Eldest Ancestor Fire, the eldrvaettr (the fire spirit) of the fire that will light the pipe, and to the tobacco that I load into it. As I walk, the trails of smoke are offerings. What am I offering to? To Jörð, to the Ancestors underneath, to each bit of mud, blade of grass, tree, and creature that walks with me. To the landvættir, the land spirits. As I walk, sometimes I catch a glimpse of vaettir, spirits, that walk with me. Some are small, and remind me of the kodama from Princess Mononoke.
These Beings may walk alongside me, some in silence, where others might urge me to bend down and move a stick or rock, or even to pick one up and carry it for awhile. Sometimes this urging comes as a feeling in my feet to stop, and other times it like a whisper to my heart. This kind of communing with the vaettir is an ongoing practice. When I have my pipe lit, my heart open, and my feet engaged it is easier for my own souls to commune with Them. There is less to distract me from the forest when I am fully engaged with it, with all my senses. When the pipe is not going to be treated in a sacred way, and it becomes distracting to communing with the forest, it is put away.
Sometimes the forest is utterly quiet, and I walk with only the sound of my boots. Sometimes I am walking with my children, and there is constant chatter. Sometimes I am walking with my partners, with Jean, or all of them, and at times the talking goes on at length. Other times, our walks are full of quiet reflection on what we have said to each other or what has gone on in the day. The forest has space for all of this and more.
I have been in some forests that loom in an intimidating way, as if to say “Enter at your own peril.” I also have walked through forests that were, at best, indifferent to humans’ presence. Crossing Hedgerows skógvaettir (forest spirits in Old Norse) are inviting. There is a feeling of walking in a home away from home.
How does one hear the forest talk? I start by taking three deep breaths. The first, I pass my hands over my front, knowing my connection to all living things through Yggdrasil. The second, I pass my hands over my side, knowing my connection to all living things through Askr and Embla, Ash and Elm, the first people in the Heathen Nordic Creation Story, who start off on the newly-made shores of Midgrd, our World, as driftwood. The third, I pass my hands over the back of my head, knowing my connection to all living things through Jörð, the Earthmother, from Whom we get the name for our Earth. Sometimes I include a visualization, or imagine the feeling of ‘roots’ coming out of my feet and leaves out of my hands, with my body turning into the trunk of a tree. With these three sacred breaths done, if I am still feeling disconnected or if my head is too full of ‘chatter’ from the day, I take more breaths until I settle. Then, I listen.
The forest talks in the rustle of leaves overhead, the way the mushroom fruits come up through the deadwood, and the hints of buds as Spring takes hold. The countless tracks, on and off trail, of deer, coyote, rabbits, and racoons, speak of animals who call this place home. The crispness in the air as Winter and Spring still pass the world back and forth touches my nose, my face, and tongue. The smell of the soil, the rich darkness that moves with my feet upon each step, speaks to the health of this place, and welcomes me further on. I walk here as a welcomed guest. So do all who walk well in these woods.