ARCTIC NORWAY

Uttakleiv Beach on the Lofoten Islands and the Siren Call of Selkies

WHALE SKULL OVERLOOKING AN ARCTIC BEACH

Some places will never leave you. They exist within you forever, as part of your soul-scape and dream-scape. Such places have the power to reveal (or unlock) vast territories in our Inner World (in my book about sacred art I call this The World Within). One we know our way there, we can continue to explore these places long after we leave the physical location.

I just got back from the Arctic. As always it was hard to leave because I am a northern soul. I feel more in my element the further north I go! Today I am going to write about the one place that touched me most deeply, while the memories are still tender and fresh. I also want to share some pictures, in the hope that some of you can visit this place too, in your own soul-scape or dream-scape. (I may organise a “collective dreaming invitation” in a future post here!)

The Lofoten Islands are in Arctic Norway, well above the Arctic Circle. Geeky fact: did you know that the Arctic Circle is on the move? It is currently travelling north and eventually it will travel south again. In a similar fashion the Magnetic North Pole is also on the move, shifting away from Canada and racing towards Siberia at a speed of about 50 meters a year (due to the shifting liquid iron and nickel inside the Earth’s outer core).

When I visited the Arctic for the first time (which was in Greenland, in 2008), I saw the icebergs float in Disko Bay (outside Ilulissat), as the plane made its descent, and I burst into tears. I had come Home! It was the greatest spiritual experience of my life.

Spiritually speaking, reality becomes very stretchy and bendy in the Far North. In my experience his phenomenon only increases the further North you travel (and the furthest North I have been is Svalbard). Time takes on peculiar qualities, especially under the Midnight Sun and during the time of Darkness at Noon, when the sun doesn’t set or rise for weeks on end.

The “veil between the worlds” (I perceive it more as a protective membrane) thins to the point of non-existence. While walking (or hiking) you have one foot in this world and one foot in the spirit world, at all times. It is incredibly easy to hear the voices of the spirits, to a backdrop of calving icebergs.

We generally think of icebergs as silent majestic things (because most of us have only seen photographs), but in reality they are very noisy! Growlers are fragments that break off a massive iceberg (or glacier) and float low in the water (like a moving shelf, birds and polar bears like resting and travelling on them). The calving process sounds like gun-shots being fired, it is an alarming sound which ricochets off the mountains and other icebergs in the vicinity (some the size of a city block). The growlers make noises too, caused by the trapped air bubbles trying to rise and escape as the ice melts.

In 2008 we made a boat trip from Ilulissat to Disko Island, which is a very otherworldly place, where the boundary between human beings and animals (largely) dissolves. This experience takes us right back to a very ancient mythical time, when deities still walked on Earth and human beings mastered the art of shapeshifting into animals (and vice versa). Shapeshifting was commonplace, not an art that only famous shamans (are said to) master. You could say that in those days humans and animals were “bilingual”, they still understood each other’s language. How do we know this? Because we find consistent stories about this in the early mythology of peoples on different continents (people who were not in communication with each other and had only an oral tradition), including Inuit tales about “The Ancient Ones”.

The Lofoten Islands are another place where an alchemical process of dissolution and transmutation is always occurring, before our very eyes. Lofoten means “the lynx foot”. The islands acquired their name because, from the air, this cluster looks like a lynx paw. Not only that, but one of the smaller islands (furthest away from the Norwegian mainland), called Flakstadøya today, looks like a wolf paw (bird’s eye view) and used to be called Vargfot (Wolf Paw) in Old Norse.

The place where I became “undone” is Uttakleiv Beach. It is a wild, crescent-shaped and wind-battered, white beach on the northern side of the central island called Vestvågøya. There are many large rocks, which look like eggs laid by giants, polished smooth by the Arctic surf. Those rocks all have powerful indwelling spirits, which act as the spirits of place. The rocks also act as portals. The protective ring of high mountains peaks surrounding the beach also houses formidable Guardians of Place. Mountain spirits are not shy to act when humans drop litter, or harm the land in any way. They have the power to cook up storms, fog and blizzards without any warning.

This secluded beach is a place were humans become selkies (and go for swim) and where selkies briefly become humans and set foot ashore. (Never EVER steal their seal-skin hidden under a rock, because your act will trap them in the world of humans!)

It is a place where the Inuit goddess Sedna, the Sea Keeper, visits from time to time. I felt her presence most strongly in one huge standing rock on the beach (very close to the boiling roaring surf). Below I will post both a photograph and a drawing (from my Lofoten Art Journal). Please tell me if you can see her, or sense her, too!

See a previous article here, written in Greenland: MEET SEDNA

There is one rock pool nearby which looks like a giant eye, looking up at the sky. The Great Below communicating with the Great Above. The locals call it “The Dragon’s Eye”!

On the day we visited, the Midnight Sun was sailing overhead and she paused in the curved space (carved out of one serrated mountain peak overlooking the ocean), on her way to setting for the first time since May 25th. She had been above the horizon for 53 days non-stop! The serrated edge of the “mountain hollow” refracted some of her rays, blessing the beach with beams in all colours of the rainbow. At the same time there was a powerful reminder that her sacred twin: Darkness at Noon, will now gain strength and gather speed…

I sat on one rock for a while and my selkie tail grew out. My (extremely long) hair turned green, like well-seasoned (if matted and entangled) sea weed. Sedna, the Inuit Mother of the Sea, gave me her blessing (she and I have done a lot of work together in Greenland). “An Otherworldly Someone” ran their fingers through my hair (from behind, I never saw them) and a voice said:

CHOOSE! GO OR STAY?

I wanted to stay so badly and join my Selkie Kin, singing in the deeper waters just beyond the surf. They had left me an invitation, a trail of Sea Runes on the beach. In places where the sea weed curled up into a circle, the faces of babies and toddlers looked up at me. I thought: AH, so that is how it works, how selkies attract the souls of babies if they wish to get pregnant…

SELKIE SEAWEED CHILD

BUT…

I am professionally schooled in the ways of the Otherworld and its seductions and “selkish” or seal-soul enchantments. I knew that “going” (leaving the beach) was the only option. A mother of three Viking sons (plus one beautiful daughter-in-law to be) does NOT swim into the sea, to never return. So I deliberately broke the spell and my Piscean Self slowly regained the use of my feet (with pins and needles hammering away, grounding me).

I went to sit with the whale skull a bit higher up the mountain slope, overlooking the beach. My husband (who had been watching from afar) now dared approach and said: Are you ready to leave?

I said: “I will never be ready to leave this place, but yes, I am coming…”

My webbed feet and hybrid heart have never felt so heavy.

My next post will either be about Eldering or about revisiting the Norns (and the tricky matter of collective and generational karma). Leave me a comment and stay tuned!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes more), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). If you would like to see regular posts about about Nordic spirituality and my life as a Forest Witch (and of course short videos of all the wildlife here!), please follow me on Instagram or Facebook, thank you!

As my audience here grows daily I need to add the following statement: ©I own the copyright to all my own words and images, as they appear here on Substack (or elsewhere). You can only reproduce this material (full or in part) elsewhere, if you give me full credit as the author and or artist. Most of you already knew this! Thank you!

Imelda Almqvist, Arctic Witch

BIO FOR IMELDA ALMQVIST

Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe). So far she has written four non-fiction books and two picture books for children. Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using shamanism creatively with young people of all ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (an impassioned plea for fearless imagination) in 2020 and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022. Her latest book: Portals, Patterns and Pathways: A Handbook for Rune Magicians, Star Gazers and Myth Makers was published on May 26th.

The Green Bear is a series of picture book for children, aged 3 – 8 years. The stories and vibrant artwork, set in Scandinavia, invite children to explore enchanting parallel worlds and to keep their sense of magic alive as they grow up.

Imelda appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism.

Imelda’s eagerly awaited book about the runes (the title is Portals, Patterns and Pathways, a Handbook for Rune Magicians, Star Gazers and Myth Makers) will be published by Collective Ink on 26 May 2026). She is currently working on a book about Inuit deities and mythology.

Imelda prefers being contacted by email. She only rarely checks (or responds) to DM’s on social media platforms.

Please note that Imelda’s on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings went off-line on 3 September 2025, due to a quadruple raise in fees imposed by the hosting platform. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT AND FULL EXPLANATION

Website:

http://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/

YouTube Channel: youtube.com/user/imeldaalmqvist

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