What is a Doran? (The answer is far more Celtic than Norse, bear with me.)

  Someone asked me this question on another social network, and I felt compelled to save a copy here as well for future reference.

  The term is from Monica Furlong’s Juniper / Wise Child / Coleman trilogy.

  What I love about the first book she wrote in the series, which was the middle book "Wise Child," is that it’s basically magic-based fantasy created using *only magical practices that can actually be done in real life.* The prequel and especially the sequel use a lot more Hocus-Pocus-esque fancy fantasy stuff, but Wise Child - which can be read alone - is full of bits of wisdom and is 100% legit stuff.

  Best bit? The writer of this excellent stuff was actually a Christian, and as someone who does a lot of Interfaith work, I appreciate that. Furlong is actually far better known in the UK as the Anglican Church theologian who lead the push for women to become priests in that denomination of Christianity. Yet here she sat, writing a book about magic *that totally gets it right.*

  But back to the  question.

  Please note that I have no problem with the word witch, and the opening quote is from the book, not me. Also note that while anyone can cast spells, there’s more to being a Doran (even if it is, technically, a fictitious category - though it’s solid enough in the book to be real, as I said). It involves a lot of direct energy and trance work, not just casting spells. It also sounds a lot fluffier from these bits than it winds up being in the rest of the book(s). The characters in it are pretty hardcore. For all that is said, in the prequel, Juniper, there’s knives, blood, extremely hard work, borderline starvation during hard winters, etc.

**********

“[Witch is] just a vulgar word for it that can mean all kinds of things. The word we use is doran.” Juniper went on to explain that the word doran comes from our Gaelic word dorus, an entrance or way in (the English have a word very like it.) It was someone who had found a way into seeing or perceiving.
“Seeing or perceiving what?”
Juniper hesitated. “The energy,” she said at last. “The pattern.”
…
“So what does a doran do then?”
“Some of us do healing things, like me and my herbs. Some of us sing or write poetry, or make beautiful things. Some of us don’t do anything at all. They often stay in one place, and they just know.”
“Know? Know what?”
“How things are,” said Juniper mysteriously.

***

“Not everyone is familiar with the vocabulary of witchcraft,” [said the inquisitor.] “Perhaps you will tell us now what a doran is.”
“It is someone who loves all the creatures of the world, the animals, birds, plants, trees, and people, and who cannot bear to do any of them any harm. It is someone who believes that they are all linked together and that therefore everything can be used to heal the pain and suffering of the world. It is someone who does not hate anybody and who is not frightened of anyone or anything.”
I could see from the expression on the inquisitor’s face that he had not expected such a reply.

*********

  All above quotes are from Wise Child, by Monica Furlong.

  Doran, a word invented by British writer Monica Furlong in the late 1980’s for her book “Wise Child,” is a reference to standing in the door: between darkness and light, between the natural world and the supernatural. The original Old Irish / Scots Gaelic root from which Furlong derived this word is doras/dorus, which has a related Irish term doirseoir. Before it became a term for a caretaker, by way of being used to mean “porter” in more modern times, doirseoir originally referred to the job of a gatekeeper. A Doran, then, is one who lives at the gates between dimensions of reality. Furlong also tied the term to the idea of the Cailleach. While Cailleach can refer to a specific Celtic goddess of Winter, the term cailleach can also simply mean hag or wise woman. The Cailleach and Brigid were two halves of a whole, and the word Cailleach is similar to a word meaning “stranger” and “outsider” in multiple languages and cultures.

  With the addition of these connotations a Doran takes on, in addition to the idea of a spiritual gatekeeper, the attributes of the wise person who is capable of surviving even in solitary (during a time when such things usually meant a very hard survival - you grew your own food, made your own clothes, etc), with the wisdom to not only thrive in spring, but to maintain power during the harsh winters of life. Unlike the more common English term “witch,” the word “doran” does not have historical baggage attached to it, and might feel less exclusionary to Non-Wiccan Pagans not wishing to be confused with Wiccans, or even to members of Abrahamic faiths with an interest in the magical or mystical.

  (Yes, I know that there is the perfectly good word "seidkona," and one can talk of Galdur, but this is an umbrella word that also carries ethical and theological implications, and can be a shared path among those of vastly different perspectives, whereas a seidkona is specifically Norse.)

Loki Steals From Ratatoskr (fiction based on two UPG's, written for a university class)

“Pour me a shot of whiskey,” the red bearded stranger says, “and I'll indulge your longing for a story.”
    I oblige, and he takes a sip. “So this is that new honey whiskey, eh? It's like mead, but stronger. I like it!” he says, before tossing it back.
    Recaling himself, he clears his throat.
    “Such good spirits indeed deserve a tale. Let me see...”


===<>===

    Once upon a time, some dwarves had wandered to Jotunheim, in search of rare materials. While Svartalfheim has metals aplenty, there are rare stones they can't always obtain – such as a crystalline obsidian, which shows an entire rainbow of colors, only darker, as deep as night itself, the darkest shades still perceptible as “true” reflecting in its depths. These they would polish and use in the hilts of swords, or fine diadems, and their magic was great, especially in the hands of a shapeshifter.

    However the treasure they were after was not the only one they possessed. On their journeys they had also visited Alfheim to trade for gold. Already they had shaped this lovely treasure into a new form – that of three delicate golden acorns.

    Loki, noticing the dwarves so far from home, and observing the way they were trying to keep the evidence of their visit to a minimum, realized they must be mining in secret.
    “Well how lovely! I wonder what else they may be hoarding, and if the other Aesir would reward me for... delivering it.”

    Hidden behind some trees, Loki turned inward, and slowly turned himself into a rabbit. He hopped over, looking as simple and boring as he possibly could, trying to pass for being part of the scenery, and no more. He slowly hopped towards the supply pack of one of the dwarves, and pawed the acorns out of it. He dug a small hole and buried them, hiding the treasures until they went to sleep.

    None of this was noticed by the dwarves.

    Loki, still congratulating himself on his theft, and sure that this would put him back into the Aesir's good graces after that incident with Sif, walked into Odin's council chambers. Before he could even speak, Huginn few off of Odin's shoulder, snatched the string of the bag, and delivered it to Odin's waiting palm.

    “What is this?” growled Odin. “What have you done?”

    “... I thought I was giving you a gift, but now I am not so sure.”

    Odin pinched the bridge of his nose, desperate to calm himself before he lashed out at his blood brother needlessly. His fury still seeped into his voice, edging it with a hard grit.

    “Well, Loki, next time you steal a gift, make certain it was not one I gave. The gold for these trinkets came from Alfheim. The dwarves you stole them from owed Ratatoskr quite a large debt, and were given the gold to pay it back as a payment from me, in return for making a few items at my request. Gold of that purity was not cheap, Loki. That offering was to buy the silence of that nattering squirrel!”

    Odin sighed and sat down, but when he looked up, any sign of weariness was replaced by a look of steel. “Muninn?”

    Memory took flight, fetched a scroll, and delivered it to the All-Father. He picked up a quill, dipped it in ink, and handed the scroll to Loki.



Odin fixed his eye upon Loki - "Take the acorns wherever the dwarves stayed before you found them. Unfortunately for you, I believe they were staying as guests of Frey, so you'll be sneaking into the home of another god, not an elf. But then," Odin paused to make his point, "If you had any qualms with sneaking into any of our homes, my daughter in law would have a slightly different hair color right now, hmm?"

Loki winced. Of course Odin had guessed what he had intended to do. Unfortunately, this also meant he had reinforced the memory!

Odin had already moved on, however. "Take this scroll. Disguise yourself as a messenger - they might guess the truth if they know it's you. Deliver it to them after you have hidden the offering at Freyssalr."

So Loki left. First, he carefully placed the golden acorns on a window sill. (He knew, from having stayed there when Frey's father married Skadi, that this was the window nearest to where the guests slept.) Then, as he had done so many times before, he turned himself into the tiniest of flies, and found a way in through the roof joinings. Carefully, quietly, he opened the other side of the window, and reached along the sill for the once prized treasure, which had become his burden.

He dropped the acorns near where the dwarves had slept, in a casual way. They were just out of sight, but still seemed to have been accidentally kicked there while packing.

"Well, that went smoothly." Loki thought to himself, re-latching the window and sneaking back out into the crisp pre-dawn light.

He turned from Freyssalr, and set off for the dwarves, careful to disguise himself before setting foot in Svartlheim.

By now, the dwarves had returned, and Loki could feel the forge's heat leaking under the door as he knocked.

A dropped "clang" sound and some angry words echoed from within, but whoever he had startled was not who came to the door - or so Loki judged from the speed with which it opened.

"A message," Loki's voice squeaked out, sounding like a nervous young boy. "From the All-Father himself!"

The dwarf skeptically eyed the boy before him, dressed in rags and freckled. "And what was one like you doing in Asgard?"

"I, um, work as a stable hand," Loki replied, wincing at the thought of his son and hoping it wouldn't give him away.

"I thought the horses were under Gna's care?"

"The goddess of horses?" Loki's eyes grew wide, and his voice squeaked again. "The messenger goddess?"

"Aye, the same. Or that mortal kin of Odin's - Hermod."

"The hero? But he died! His duties are in Valhalla now."

"And Gna?"

Loki thought quickly. "She's there, sometimes, but the All-Mother has need of her often these days. Someone has to groom Sleipnir when she is busy, or feed and re-shoe Hofvarpnir when she is busy or tired."

The dwarf seemed to accept this answer and stepped back, allowing Loki to enter.

"It isn't often we get two messengers from the gods in one day. Considering the other just left, we thought you might be an imposter, or a thief!"

Loki gulped nervously.

"Don't worry so much boy! We know yer okay now, and the harm's been done anyway. Ái was forgetful again and we mistook his lapse for a theft."


The dwarf moved back to a table, and filled a horn with mead.

“Well? Don't just stand there gaping! Rest yer feet, have some mead, and let's have a look at that message.”

Loki handed the scroll over and sat down to his mead. The dwarves' eyes skimmed over the paper.

“I see. So he heard from the Jotnar, and knows the squirrel squeaked about what we were up to. Only wants the diadem now, eh? Well, that tracks. We can return the stones for the armband to the Jotnar. That should stop their grumbling – they need never know how many we actually mined.”

His eyes flicked up to Loki's.
“You'll rest here and eat with us, but in the morning, you'll have to make yet another journey, to Jotunheim.”

“At last,” thought Loki. “Home.” He almost wanted to make up some excuse about Odin having requested his return as soon as possible, so he had better leave immediately and rest there, in order to return to the All-Father in fewer days.

But then he remembered.

Angrboda.

Was she the one who had demanded the gems back? Of course it was her. It wouldn't be the ruler of Utgard – the place where the dwarves had been mining was out of his domain. He gritted his teeth that Odin had neglected to share that... detail.

Now he dreaded his return home, and thought better of staying the night with the dwarves.
He needed time to plan.
What was he going to say?
He never could fool Angrboda.
… or could he?

The next day, he set off again. This time, however, he made certain that he simply looked like himself before he set foot in Jotunheim.

The road, by now, was all too familiar – the path home, indeed. Before him, eventually, was that hall of old wood, etched in runes and knotwork, obscured by antlers and polished bones, like ivory, above the door. The home of the Wolf Mother.

He entered, and a shard of pottery exploded above his head.

“You missed.” he said, fixing his once-paramour's gaze with his own.

“No. I didn't. Get out!”

“Shh. No, I'm here to make amends.”

“How could you? What amends could you possibly make?” the giantess lowered her voice to a growl, and approached. “You let them take our son,” she pinned him to the wall, “ and then, you go and marry that Vanir bitch!”

“I care, though. Look, I heard you were angry about some dwarfs stealing from the land, so... I used my position among the Aesir, and took care of it.”

“Took care of it how?” Angrboda growled out.

“Look!” he put up his hands to get space from her, and pulled out a neck purse with a handful of polished, medium sized stones.

Mesmerized, Angrboda took one of the rainbow obsidian stones from his hand.

“Loki...”

Blinking and recovering herself. “Well. Good. They're not still in the ground where they can resonate with the local magic, but at least they have been returned home. You've been useful. Thank you.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “So no more throwing things, ok?”

Angrboda sighed. “You may return to the Ironwood in peace, and leave in peace. I just... don't want to see you, for awhile, ok?”

Loki sighed, for part of him did miss her. “I understand.”

He turned, and, for the first time in many long years, went to his childhood home to rest his head.

===<>===

“Of course,” the red bearded stranger smiled, “It wasn't long after that when I saw him myself, and let him in on the joke. The only thing he ultimately changed was that the arm band was never made. Odin had ordered two pieces for close loved ones, you see. One for his wife, and one... for his blood brother. In the end, for once, Loki stole from himself!”

Ansuz Meditation

Creation, Wisdom, Order

After the thunder of Thor grounds the destructive force of the lightning, the rain that falls along with it fertilizes the fields. So too does Ansuz follow Thuriaz. All experience is a lesson, when seen correctly, and all can be use for growth and inspiration. From his suffering, Odin gained wisdom. If Thuriaz is chaos, destruction, and fear, Ansuz is orderly, creative, wisdom. In spite of being orderly, it is not always simple. Even well organized systems may be extremely detailed and complicated. Just consider Celtic knotwork!

Consider, even, the complexity of a good speech. First, a being must be complex enough TO speak – something bacteria, for example, or even human babies, cannot do. The speech, on top of this, needs to be well organized, with wisdom in its ideas, and well chosen words, in order to be effective. Even the simple act of uttering a sentence begins with an invisible thing, a thought, something which cannot have its existence proven, beyond which chemicals are attached to it and where it fires. Is dopamine itself a thought? Is the thought based on where it is? Would it fire in the same place in everyone who tries ice cream, enjoys it, and is then made to remember the experience? Perhaps, perhaps not. We have no proof of the content of thoughts, external to the mind of the thinker. Such is the difficulty in treating those in comas, as well. All we have are chemicals and ionic charges, surging and flowing.

We take this invisible thing and give it form, in tangible, measurable soundwaves, with detectable physical vibrations in the objective world, recordable, provable, but still carrying the unobservable, hidden, and unknowable. No wonder we miscommunicate, when we rely solely on sharing invisible ideas across a medium which must be learned through itself.

We hear too often what we want to hear, and only learn language as it is passed on – by parents or guardians, teachers (in our native tongue, and in other languages), friends, business associates... directly or through observation, language IS system, and tradition, and order. Without this system, one cannot even communicate ideas of anarchy! (How dangerous extremism can be, if one thinks this far into it!)

While sometimes organization and tradition fail us, this merely means we passed down the wrong lessons. They must be periodically revised when needed, and other times kept. Traditionalists don't like new ideas, revolutionaries don't like old ones, and a balance must be kept. Sometimes there are problems best solved in ways we have solved them before – for all their flaws, our ancestors were not inferior beings, as we sometimes like to think. Indeed, we have our own flaws, still. Sometimes, old systems no longer apply, or must adapt. If we cut and burn all old knowledge, we may abandon something not needed now, which will be later. There is, perhaps, no greater historical warning on this than the burning of the library of Alexandria. The knowledge it contained may have been scoffed at in those days, but how much we could have accomplished if we hadn't had to rediscover its ideas, like a heliocentric universe, all over again! While its treatises on a geocentric universe were perhaps no great loss, how much else did we lose when the knowledge of the past was burned indiscriminately!

This is how we received the wisdom of the Norse gods, as well – through records which were kept. We also lost many of the oral tales told in halls, and what a loss! In this way, oral tradition is much like a volva or mystic – sharing echos down the ages, or of the voices of the gods, filtered through a living mind. Too often we filter difficult messages, then become angry when “reality happens” and breaks through anyway, in spite of not being “invited in.”

There is interdependence between Ansuz and Thuriaz, wisdom and difficulty. The gods made what they did from the primal chaos, and chaos and destruction clean the slate for creation.

So it is.

So it will be.

Thuriaz Meditation

Torn, Thurse, Thor

Harm, Chaos, Growth

Not all darkness passes from the complex psyche as easily as it does for the Auroch.

Not all beings reach sunlight at the same time – many sorrows are caused when a being lashes out in their pain.

Chaos has its time and place. Sometimes rigid regimes need to be disrupted, to topple. If a tornado destroys the seat of a dictatorship, it results in a chance to build something new. If it destroys farmlands, it results in too much chaos, leading to death.

Sometimes anger is useful. We can achieve great things when anger motivates us to survive against the odds, to make scientific discoveries that prove theories, or to believe that a “better” way can be found to do something. The drive to compete is similarly not bound entirely with “aggression.” Even the rage of the berzerker comes in handy if you must defend yourself, or kill a strong animal in order to avoid starvation.

Even disaster and disease, as terrible as they are, serve as a way, wholly indifferent to our opinions, to keep us in check. The storms and illnesses have gotten worse the more we tinker with our environment. Every time we stop one deadly bacteria, we create stronger, nastier ones. The more we prod at the earth with gene splicers and habitat destruction, the more it prods back.

Thuriaz also references the giants, the “Other.” When we look at members of the groups we identify with, we see their uniqueness. We think of the diversity of skills and opinions. Members of the “Other,” however, are “all the same,” and anyone who stands out as an individual is an “exception” - like Loki or Hela. It never occurs to us that a few obvious culprets, like Surt, have spoiled our opinion of others – after all, who are Skadi and Gerd if not also Jotuns? We look at extremists to define “them,” while dismissing the extremists among “us.”

While our strength is not equal to the damage caused by nature, there are times when we must confront and fight through our problems. Thuriaz is both the destruction, wild and unharnessed, caused by sheer chaos, and the controlled, decisive, forceful strike of Thor's hammer. Thuriaz is the will to not just trample over the problem, as Uruz would, but to stand and look it in the eye.

There will always be problems, competitions, and confrontations, but the hammer of Thor protects those, by definition, weaker than Thor is. When we shield and shelter the victims of natural disaster and economic ruin, we are using the energy of Thuriaz as Thor would – to ensure not only our own survival, but that of humanity itself, even in spite of our moments of weakness. Life is hard for everyone, so learn from your trials (even if you only learn when to be strong enough to ask for help!), and show others compassion during theirs.

Conflicts and challenges happen.

“Othering” is an epidemic.

Be compassionate anyway.
Emerge from life's forge, stronger than before.

Uruz Meditation

Literal Meaning: Wild Ox / Auroch
Possibly tied to Audhumbla.

Strength. Forcing through tough obstacles. Vitality.

Energy courses through you, raw, wild, free.

Drawn from the sun, the vegetation of the earth, even the wind itself seeming to lift your spirit as though it had wings. The path is simpler, somehow, and you feel stronger than any rocks in your way. You wonder why you ever felt burdened, why you ever imagined life was a dreary place. With warm sunlight, healthy food, and a confident step, you remember what you are, and that life can indeed make you stronger instead of beating you down.

We spend so much of our lives in a struggle against others, when often what we should struggle with are our own insecurities. When we confront our fears head on and trample them, the sunlight breaks through, and we can live healthier lives.

In the hunt, the hunter finds themselves, more than their prey. They confront their own power to bring death, their shadow, as well as their fear of starvation or losing their own life in a struggle against a large animal. These are dark places – but the best hunter would know how to hunt responsibly. While the Aurochs were hunted to extinction, when we know our own strength, as well as its terrible potential, quite often we find that we lose our taste for abusing it.

Those who crave power and become corrupted by it are often the ones who feel most powerless. They want to prove their power to control and bend others, not to their supposed enemy, but to themselves.

The one who does not truly know what a weapon does is the one who uses it. Once its destructive power is known, weapons are laid aside. Power is no longer a question, so much as how to use it in ways that do not lead to extinction. This is what turns bombs into power plants (and evolves those, if irresponsible, into something else yet again).

This nightmare of fear, war, death, and posturing vanish. Swords are beaten into plows, and problems are trampled and returned to dust by the Primal Ox. No power can keep it from seeking the sunlight, any more than water could keep a fish from swimming.

Fehu Meditation

Wealth. Food. Cattle (literal meaning).

Food goes bad, cattle die, money cannot be taken beyond the grave.

Yet many go to their graves early for lack of these things.

This rune had the idea of flow, against stagnation.

Wealth must flow within a community and not be hoarded, stagnant.

Historically, those who hoard food resources in particular, as a form of wealth, have often been murdered. For multitudes without food, it is also a life or death situation, and even when wealth does flow, a community may have difficulty deciding when it is best spent. China, for example, in the early days of this 21^st century, spends millions of dollars building empty apartment buildings... but not feeding the people.

The Ancient Norse knew what we have forgotten – any other economy exists to subsidize the subsistence economy. People are capable of growing food, and making clothes- these were as much “everyone does these things” as television or playing games on a phone are today. (There was not a gender split here – tailors and seamstress, farmers, could be anyone.) Clothing making was found to be simple, meditative, relaxing, and a way to keep the hands busy. Everyone who could grow food did so, and though that was sometimes hard work, by splitting the labor between as many people as possible it was in some ways easier. Home building was often a community event, and the same was true for barns, with a celebration held when the final touches were put in place. American midwestern “barn raising” parties descended from this, as did “housewarming” parties. We have removed food, clothing, and shelter from our own control, and given it over to those who use it to control us, keeping us eternally in their debt.

Can you imagine if clothing, shelter, water, and some food were a “given?” You trade some of your food with neighbors for a variety. You use any other skills to supplement this - to get additional food in trade from those who grow more, or some of whatever passes for technology in your era, and things like shoes that most people could not make. With security of shelter, the economy looks quite different. The economy we know developed out of that sort of economy, which existed relatively unchanged for hundreds of years – thousands, really.

Never since the feudal lords have people been so easily threatened into homelessness on someone else's whim.

Never, even in extravagant empires, has the gap between “rich” and “poor” been bigger.

Because wealth is not flowing. It is staying stagnant.

The wolf, which will destroy the stagnation, grows up in the woods – nature herself will collapse any economy based so heavily on pollution and throw-away consumerism.

Fehu's lesson has not been respected, and both economically and financially, Ragnarok will come if this does not change.

Runic Meditations Intro / General Intro

To kick off this blog, I figured I'd start with publishing a series of meditations on the futhark runes. Because they are still a work in progress, some of them may be back edited in the future as I finish the project.

These meditations can be used alone, but I highly recommend checking out another source with good information on the runes if you are new to them first.

One free and easy place to get started is http://www.runemaker.com/futhark/reading.shtml

More will come afterwards, however. Stay tuned!