How I met the runes… A vitki’s story.
I have been asked alot recently about when and how I started practicing or learning about the runes. So I decided to write down my story, and share my experiences.
Once upon a time, I was 13 years old, and in the library at my highschool. While surfing the net, (I honestly have no idea what I was looking at before!) I stumbled upon a page about the runes. Immediately captivated by them, their use as a divinatory tool, and their potential use in healing and magic work, I printed off everything I could find.
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Herb Focus : Chaga (Inonotus obliquus)
Last week, I was given an amazing gift: a large piece of Chaga that my dear friend harvested while on a retreat in Northern Ontario. The following day I prepared some for myself and had the most incredible burst of energy that kept me going all day. I was really surprised because I didn’t know what to really expect. I did some research and found out why it had such a profound impact on my day.
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Herb of the Month: Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)
In May, we who live in Southern Ontario, have lots of sunny days, the warm south winds carrying the warm air that opens the blooms of Spring. One of my favourites of these is Dandelion.
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Herb of the Month: Coltsfoot (Tussilago Farfara)
Coltsfoot : April Herbal Focus
So, as we walk through the woods in April and early may, we can see small yellow flowers that look like dandelions, but have a scaly, reddish-brown stem, and no leaves present. This amazing flower, that likes moist, shady places like the edge of a forest, is called Coltsfoot, or it’s Latin name, Tusilago Farfara.
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Healer, heal thyself!
I have been recently involved in a Women’s Healing Circle, hosted by a local Native Outreach and Resource center. The experiences I have had there, the welcome I received from the wonderful women there, has been beautiful. I am so grateful for the openness of my sisters there, even though I am not an Indigenous Canadian. We meet weekly and hold a ceremony, talking about what we are each working through that week, what we are thankful for, and learning from one another.
One of my sisters who has described one of her gifts being healing others, said something interesting to me one week. She had been feeling sick, and overworked, and expressed that she wished someone would help her heal, for she couldn’t heal herself, only others.
This confounded me. I assumed that healers following their traditional approaches, with access to their ancestral wisdom, would know that they could indeed heal themselves. It has been my understanding ever since coming across teachings like that of Susun Weed and the Wise Woman Tradition, that Wise Women have the ability, and the obligation to heal themselves and others.
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Gardens and Growing Up
I have had a close relationship with plants my whole life. I have a distinct memory of being a small child, maybe 5 or 6 years old, and playing in my grandmother’s backyard with my cousin, who is only a few months younger than myself. We were making a magic potion on the cinder-block “stove” that we had made with some other rocks and a block that was hanging around back there. We pounded and crushed a handful of weeds we had gathered from the yard; some clover, grass, dandelion flowers and leaves, and plantain leaves and seeds. We mixed some water in to the “potion” and when I was picking more plants to add to the mixture, I cut my hand on a blade of grass. I applied some of the “magic potion”, and to my amazement, the pain was instantly gone. My skin began to knit itself back together much more quickly than ever before. Without knowing it, I used one of the most wonderful healing “weeds”, Plantain.
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