Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 8. The Making of a Seiðman 225
new hometown especially during the period between Thanksgiving and mid-January
when the ghosts are active can help align one with the town’s luck. It doesn’t have
to be some grandiose ceremony–this is not about impressing my neighbors about
how eccentric I am–all I have to do is stroll through the graveyard, read the stones
perhaps, and listen. I am always polite in strange graveyards. As one who had
squandered away all his personal luck before the age of 40 winters, I can use all
the luck I can get. Also working with the dying and newly dead paid off well for
me because it provided with a handful of ghosts who were willing to ‘put in a good
word’ for me.
Hole-sitting is a good exercise for when the pressures are becoming too great. It
can be as simple or as ceremonial as one likes since it is done alone. Personally, I can
not personally stand pomp and grandiosity and have a difficult time dealing with
others who engage in it. Hole-sitting is simple in essence: find or make a depression
in the earth (not a ditch). It must be about up to one’s chest on all sides and the
depression should be about 6 ft.-8 ft. in diameter with fairly gently sloping sides.
The process is simple: go there about an hour before sundown, sit in it dead-center
facing whichever direction is most comfortable (directions should be functional, not
symbolic–personally, I’m most comfortable facing anywhere from west to north),
and sit through the twilight until dark without moving from the spot. Scooting
one’s butt around to maintain good blood flow and moving the legs for the same
reason are both fully acceptable. The important thing is to keep everything from
the breastbone downwards below the level of the earth, and from the breastbone
upwards above the level of the earth. The effect of hole-sitting is to stabilize the
flow of Waters within one’s self.
Keeping one’s system clean is crucial for maintaining the flow of the Waters. For
35 years I did not think about the relationship between my emotions and the flow
of Waters. First, I did not comprehend ‘the Flow.’ I believed that I was running
under my own steam; I believed I created reality with my might and main. I thought
that when I die the world, indeed, the universe–everything that can be known or
perceived–would collapse with me. I could not accept that I was but a small cog in
a large watch: I figured that I was the watch! My luck, my power was mine, granted
to me upon my birth into this Midgard. The disease-ghost pneumonia help put that
misbelief into proper perspective. Secondly, I could not perceive any relationship
between my emotions, my physical health, and the effect that my emotions would
have on the rest of the world and my relationship to it.
The Hávamál has much to say about the maintenance of friendships and alludes
to why it is important to act in specific ways. Prior to the madness in late 1991, I
thought the perscriptions in the Hávamál were merely suggestions. At the time, I
didn’t see the need to ‘groom’ relationships.