The Way to Middle Earth Pt.1

 

The poet's heart dreams the land,

Awakening circles of stone.

She walks the edge of moorland salt,

And drums to cairn and bone.

Here she is the eddying tide,

A dance of twisted thorns.

Here she remembers threads and embers,

As ancestors spin her soul home...

Laura Daligan 05/25

How do we harness the magic of Middle Earth, and what is Middle Earth in the first place? In a nutshell, Middle Earth is here, our sacred home, and our magical connection to the land in which we are blessed to dwell.

 In the nine worlds of Old Norse cosmology, humans live in the realm of Midgarðr, meaning 'dwelling place in the middle.'* Midgarðr is connected to Asgarðr, the realm of the Æsir gods, via the rainbow bridge, Bifrǫst. J.R.R. Tolkien utilised the idea of Midgarðr for his epic literary mythology. In Tolkien's work, Middle Earth was the central hub of activity for most of his narratives. It is no secret that he was heavily inspired by northern European mythology; for example, the names Gandalf, Bömburr, Dvallin, and Durinn are all familiar characters in The Hobbit and LOTR books/movies, but they originally appear as part of a list of dwarven names in the Old Norse poem,Völuspá.

 Within modern shamanic practice, there are usually (but not always) considered to be three worlds in which the shaman can travel, the Lower World, Upper World and the Middle World. Journeying through the Middle World involves working with the 'non-ordinary reality' of the human world and accessing the magical realities which underlie our earthly existence.

We do not have to be shamans to experience the magic held within the land. Each day, we encounter a multitude of gateways that could lead us between the layers of the world...

A blackbird's liminal song, an archway of trees, patterns in bark, the music of streams, burial mounds, stone circles, the patterns of petals, and the scent of a rose...

(These are indeed a few of my favorite things :))

Working with magical symbols such as the Ogham and the Runic alphabet can also help us to connect with the wealth of magic, healing, and kinship held within the land. This will be explored futher next time! In the meantime join Maggie Rose and I on our excellent Middle Earth Rune Magics Workshop...