SOLITUDE DIARY FROM A FOREST WITCH

"What do you do all day?"

Our youngest son, while at sea on an epic sailing voyage with his Dad, asked me recently: “Mum, I know you love nothing better than being all alone in a little house in the Forest BUT WHAT DO YOU DO ALL DAY?” As if five weeks of profound solitude would be… boring… or hard to fill in any meaningful way?

Well, I don’t just float in space, I follow a predictable schedule, which I shared with him. His response was: “That would not be for me!” Fair enough, you are a 20-year old university student in Durham, you should not be a forest recluse at this time of life! Then I thought: maybe other people also sometimes wonder what I do all day! In an previous essay I described, in some detail, what spiritual teachers do (when no one is looking), especially in realms unseen, far away from the public eye. Some people wrote in to thank me for that especially, and said that they found the information helpful.

Right! Let me dismantle another mystery today: what does a Norse Forest Witch like me do all day?

I prefer natural sleep, uninterrupted by an alarm clock, so I can finish my dreams. I wake up and update my dream diary. This morning I awakened to the sound of cranes calling outside my window. Yesterday it was deer barking and the day before that it was a raven talking to me. Last week it was Huginn and Muninn, Odin’s ravens, having a full-blown argument in their favourite pine tree! They have a specific call signal for when they want my attention urgently - which has me running out of the house without delay.

I get dressed and go outside. I stand in our courtyard (a green space enclosed by three buildings, with my back turned to the Forest Edge) and I chant the runes (of the Elder Futhark most of time time, but some days I chant the Frisian Runes instead). I have large rocks with runes painted on them placed in a circle on our land. Those runes “ping back” as I tune into them and they pass me information for the coming day: “Guard your boundaries today”, “It is going to be cold - dress warm!” or “There are some people you need to check on today” or whatever it may be. I receive my instructions from spirit for the day.

The morning is for work. At the moment that means working on two handbooks for rune magicians (the text is done but I am currently working on the edits, also fine-tuning and organising footnotes). I generally write for three or four hours, unless I have an interview or client session (there is generally one of those in every working day, but I take weekends off from writing, interviews and emails).

Lunch is also my breakfast, because I do intermittent fasting, meaning I eat only two meals a day. This time of year much of it is foraged: blueberries, raspberries and smultron (wild strawberries) are all in season right now. Many of the wild flowers are edible too and make tea from them, or put them in salads.

After lunch I do a few more hours of writing (or client work etc.) Then I head into the Forest for a proper hike. I have a ready-prepared backpack with me for all eventualities: containers to collect berries, pigment and also baggies and bubble wrap for bones and animal skulls. Unfortunately loggers have been active in our area, so I go check on all affected sites. I apologise to all forest creatures. I sit on tree stumps and pray. I chant runes for regeneration. (I have known to be naughty and paint runes on tree stumps!!)

I take video footage (as I am running a series of Forest Witch Life Reels on Instagram) of whatever comes to attention. Last week I really wanted to see a wolf but I met a fox instead. That little video clip got 21,300 views (to my astonishment)! Another little clip (of a wild boar racing through the fog) clocked up an astounding 49,000 plays.

Peter and the Wolf - painting by Imelda Almqvist

Other days I do not go for a proper hike but I bring a musical instrument with me and walk straight into the forest behind our house. I play the cello for (and in concert with) birds, entering a musical dialogue. (They actually leave pauses and then talk back!) Other times I have a dialogue with the wind or the rustling leaves of the trees. It is all very animist! A dear friend gave me two kanteles, they like being played outdoors, reflecting the rhythms of nature. An artist friend made me two swan bone flutes (I tend to play those by our lake or on the cliffs overlooking the Baltic Sea).

5 - 6 pm is Music Hour, either outside or here in the house. I have a circle of animal skulls arranged on the piano and I play (classical music) for them.

I make myself a simple dinner. I have put myself in detox-and-healing (hopefully even reverse-ageing) mode so that means no alcohol, no sugar, no grains or gluten and no processed foods. Mushroom Season has just started! I ate foraged chantarelles for dinner last night! Now I keep an eye out for fly agaric mushrooms, so I can make potions from the morning dew that collects in them! I made some great potions last year and gave them to my students. None left here!

I clear away the dinner stuff and my evenings are devoted to making art (currently that means gel prints, mixed media work and also some pen-and-ink drawings). I do this while listening to something interesting: a podcast or lecture. This week I am listening to a series of lectures on quantum mechanics and particle physics as that makes a nice and inspiring backdrop for making shamanic art. My brain keeps going POP!

Oh and I have picked up my studies in Greenlandic again because I am teaching in Greenland in September. While I was there, two years ago, I had achieved a very basic but functional level of proficiency - but now I need to refresh on all that and ideally push myself further. (I remember the taxi driver who drove me back to the airport talking about the weather in Greenlandic being so unpredictable. The Greenlandic word for weather is “sila” but Sila traditionally is also one of the most powerful goddesses in Inuit cosmology. So I felt that he had called her in! Linking my departure to a return in the future. My upcoming sacred art retreat in Greenland is titled (and dedicated to working with) SEDNA AND SILA!

By 11 pm I tuck myself up in bed. I close the day by writing a poem in my art journal. Sometimes I actively set an intention for a dream - other nights I just see who or what shows. If I don’t fall asleep immediately I often sing lullabies, in Swedish or Finnish, as the mood takes me. Failing that, I go for a forest walk at 2 AM. (During eight years of roaming these forests I have only ever met 1 person there, which was a logger called Sten [Stone] desperate to see a human face!)

The next morning the entire sequence repeats.

So this is what I do all day! And I absolutely love every day here. I love my solitude!

Perhaps my greatest fear is retreating so far into solitude that I am not longer able to handle human interaction. For the time being the demands of family life and teaching (internationally) keep me well clear of that point.

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out one essay a week, 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 sacred art, 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!

Imelda, Forest House and Forest School, Sweden

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.

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 has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True. She 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 is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians (about the runes of the Elder Futhark) and on more books in the Green Bear Series. Imelda runs an on-line school called Pregnant Hag Teachings, where all classes she teaches remain available as recordings, which can be watched any time.

Website:                           

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

YouTube Channel:             youtube.com/user/imeldaalmqvist

Online School:                  https://pregnant-hag-teachings.teachable.com/courses/

Facebook:                            https://www.facebook.com/imelda.almqvist/

Instagram:                          https://www.instagram.com/almqvistimelda/

Twitter: @ImeldaAlmqvist