SWANSONG

A day in the life of a Forest Witch

Some people (but not necessarily my readers here on Substack!) appear to think that Forest Witch is a “silly” title I give myself, a job description without meaning. Today I will try to provide a glimpse into “what a Forest Witch does”.

There are a lot of small forest edge beaches near our Forest House in Sweden. We recently went for a sunset walk on one such beach and I stumbled across a dead swan. She had been shot in the chest. In Sweden landowners and farmers are allowed to shoot swans under certain circumstances, for instance when they are eating crops (something I spot our local swans doing all the time).

More information (in Swedish): Länsstyrelsen - Lantbrukare får skjuta svanar

I spoke prayers for safe passage in the Other Worlds, and I promised to return and play my swan bone flute.

I didn’t have a spade and rubber gloves with me. Nor did I have my “carcass box” in the car. Actually this was a squeaky clean rental car and my Husband is not keen on dead animals, to put it mildly. My advanced Seiðr students are a different kettle of fish! In September 2024 they went for a swim and found a deal baby seal on a little forest beach. We all went back with the “carcass box”, rubber gloves and most of the knives from our kitchen. We brought the seal home, did ceremony with it and then collectively dismembered it, so everyone could take home some seal bones. This was an extremely magical module because one evening we also got to howl with one of our local wolf packs. Here is the full story:

OF SELKIES AND WOLVES

Anyway. The dead swan stayed on my mind. That evening I had a vision of Cygnus, the Swan Constellation in the night sky, watching over her. Then I got a bit worried because Cygnus is a prominent summer constellation, in the Northern Hemisphere, but not so much in winter. As soon as darkness fell (around 3 p.m.) I consulted the Stellarium app: lo and behold, Cygnus was just peeking over the horizon. I took the soul of this swan to the Great Celestial Swan!

Art video: SWAN MAIDEN’S SONG

In my vision there was a wolf present as well (in the night sky) but I never got to the bottom of that. Maybe it is a Fairy Tale of the Future, not yet written, but already directing our movements? Or does it refer to Lupus, a the Wolf Constellation in the Southern Hemisphere? Folklore about journeys after death often describes reversals.

SWAN AS A MAP TO THE LAND OF THE DEAD, painting by the author

I had made a promise to return. We went back to the same beach one cold morning, a week later. The sun had just appeared over the horizon. I brought my swan bone flute. The dead swan was not there anymore. My husband thought that someone had reported the carcass and that the local authorities had removed it. But I remembered the strong winds that had swept over our Forest House, while I was in Hibernation, enjoying deep solitude. (I was promised a Gale from Gothenburg that never arrived!) Strong winds stir up big waves in the Baltic Sea. I tuned in and had an image of the body of this swan swept out to sea by large waves.

In terms of Norse mythology she was collected by the Nine Wave Maidens and taken to the Hall of Rán (pronounced Roan), the Norse goddess of the Sea.

I stood in the exact spot where she had died and played my swan bone flute. I saw a vision of a hut made from swan bones on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. This is an otherworld place I need to visit, and a painting I need to make.

Being a Forest Witch means walking with a human foot in this world, and a webbed foot in the other world. It means taking vulnerable beings (or souls) under my wing. It means singing (or playing) a unique song for fellow beings I encounter. It means picking litter and combing out tangles in the Web of Life. It also means picking collective energetic litter and cleaning up ancestral messes that most people are oblivious to.

It means patrolling liminal zones as a psychopomp (or soul conductor). (Part of my attention is on other worlds 24/7 and this brings incredibly vivid dream experiences, see my paintings!) It may well involve shapeshifting into a swan and safely carrying the soul of a deceased infant up to “Heaven”, on feathery wings, and lovingly placing it in the embrace of the Divine Mother. Or shapeshifting into a Bear and carrying children to safer places and Spirit Protectors, on my furry back.

Being a Forest Witch means subbing as a City Witch some days and as a Sea Witch other days. It means writing picture books for children that keep the magic alive.

Being a Forest Witch also means being forever mindful of the witches that died during the witch trials. Honouring my Witch Ancestors and teaching workshops on healing the Witch Wound. It means offering gratitude every day for the fact that I can call myself a Witch without risking my life.

For years I used to call myself a shamanic practitioner and a shamanic teacher. The words “shaman” and “shamanism” are problematic for so many reasons (too many reasons to address in this piece!) However, Witch is an indigenous European word. In a world of rapid deforestation we desperately need people who communicate with the Skogsrå (The Mistress of the Forest or Guardian Spirit of the Forest). I don’t need to borrow words from other cultures to describe my calling - I can choose to use words rooted in ancestral soil.

A Forest Witch is quite a busy person! And the work she (or he) does is REAL!

I try (but sometimes fail) to get out at least one essay a week (sometimes several), due to travel, international teaching commitments and family care responsibilities (our family lives with Alzheimer’s and I have written several posts about that). All artwork shown in Substack posts is my own, unless credited differently! 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!

Imelda Almqvist, London UK

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/

Imelda, Forest House and Forest School, Sweden