Invoke the Gods of Your Ancestors

We continue our journey of learning from the Ocean directly, and in this episode I share what I heard from the Sea when I went to ask for a message for this community. What I heard surprised me, and also felt very true in my being - that in order for us to heal the wound of Empire, we must call upon ancient powers that are of the Earth and of our own heritage.

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A written transcript can be found below the embedded player.

Welcome to a Wild New Work, a podcast about how to divest from capitalism and step into the soulful calling of these times we live in, which includes the call to rekindle our relationship with the earth. I'm Megan Leatherman, a mother to two small kids, writer, amateur e and vocational guide. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I'm your host today.

Hi friend and welcome. You are so welcome here. I hope you will get really comfortable and just settle in and that this time together is immediately enriching to your life. I'm recording this in the mid-winter period, but I'm in my greenhouse office and it's been sunny all day and warm and it's really weird and it's, uh, that familiar kind of dance in this time of climate shifts where it's like, “Oh, this is nice. What a pretty day.”

And also in my heart, I know it shouldn't be 62 degrees in early February, so. We're just kind of living and loving each other through that time. I am not sure winter fully happened here. I don't know if it was enough winter for our plant and animal and fungi kin, but I'm just gonna hold that trepidation and hold the truth of that, this is what it is right now, and I hope wherever you are, however winter is manifesting that you are just holding yourself and your beloveds inside of that. You might remember that the focus of this season of the show is to channel messages from the ocean. To let the ocean and her power, her complexity, really be our teacher in this series.

And this has been such an adventure already. I'm already surprised by where we've gone in this season of the show, and that continues today. On January 28th, I went out and made a pilgrimage to the ocean again, and I went to ask for a message to share with you. And this project continues to take me to new edges, and I hope that those edges really, really serve you ultimately.

You know, this is really enriching my life, but its purpose is really to be of service to the wider web of this human community and the more than human community. So today I'm gonna share how I did that pilgrimage in case you would like to undertake your own this winter or beyond. I'm going to tell you what happened and what I received and what is meant to come through for this community today for you today, and it surprised me, but I can see now why this message is needed at this time.

I'm going to go back to the ocean on February 24th, and this will be my final ocean pilgrimage inside of this particular project, this container, and I would love to take your prayers with me. I would love to give you the chance if you would like to bring your prayers to the ocean and invoke the power of the ocean on your behalf, if that.

Sounds helpful to you, and I've made a really simple form and I'll put the link in the show notes and I'll, I'll share it in my newsletter as well. If you're subscribed there and you can just anonymously, or with your name included, share a prayer that you have for your life right now, something that you would like.

The great ancient, powerful ocean to hold with you or to help you understand or to help you transform, and I would be honored to speak that prayer on your behalf on February 24th when I go. So I guess with that we can just get into some other quick announcements. And the first is an announcement about a new class that I'm offering.

It's called Weaving With the Ancestors. The most popular podcast last year by far was the one I did on connecting with the ancestors, number 1 51. And now I'm in a place where we can do that work together if you would like to. It's a container in which we will reconnect with our ancient ones wise and well ancestors who are ready and willing and able to support you in profound ways.

We will weave together a new understanding of. Who you are, where you come from, the power and giftedness of that line, and step into a new experience of what might be possible in your life. And if that calls to you, if that work calls to you, if the ancestors are calling to you, I would welcome you into that container.

We start April 7th. There is flexible pricing, just like with composting capitalism. I ask those that can pay to do so, but I know that this work is so needed that if cost is a barrier for you, there are ways you can just join no matter what your ability to pay is. So I hope you'll consider it if the work calls to you.

We'll meet over eight weeks and you can learn more at a wild new work.com/ancestors. I wanna say a big thank you to members of Eagle Creek, those who are contributing every month to help make this work sustainable for me. Eagle Creek is also transforming. This season, we're stepping into a new flow of monthly learning and collaboration.

And if this podcast is meaningful to you and or if you would like to do some deeper work together in community, I welcome you to join us. You can learn more about that at a wild new work.com/eagle-creek. Thank you also to those of you contributing via my buy me a coffee page. I know some of you are even doing monthly contributions or just sending a few dollars when you can.

I really appreciate that and it's so much more than just the money. It's also your energy and your trust and belief in me and this work, and I'm so grateful. So everything, including other resources and upcoming classes that I'll be sharing with the public, everything can be found at a wild new work.com.

And with that, why don't we shift into our opening invocation? May each of us be blessed and emboldened to do the work we're meant to do on this planet. May our work honor our ancestors and their ancient gods, and may it be in harmony with all creatures that we share this earth with. I express gratitude for all of the technologies and gifts that have made this possible, and I'm grateful to the Multnomah, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook and Clackamas nations, among many others, who are the original stewards of the land that I'm on. May this episode be one small stitch in the great reweaving of right relationship that so many indigenous teachers are calling us into.

So for today's story about my journey to the ocean on January 28th, for that to make sense, I have to tell you first about my experience with the gods, the old Gods of my ancestors.

And I haven't ever talked about this before, and I have this urge to give you like a million caveats and assure you that I'm not crazy, but I think I just need to speak what's here and let go of what happens after that. And this can just be the beginning of a larger, longer term conversation. And I welcome the learning that's going to happen through that.

I welcome your own experiences and reflections if you would ever like to share them with me. I have been a practicing pagan, I didn't always call it that, but essentially a Pagan for a long time now, about 10 to 11 years, and in a lot of earth-based spirituality communities or books or resources, there's a lot of talk about the goddess.

You know, the great goddess, the earth goddess, or talk about particular goddesses or gods and myth. You know, myth is such a rich area of learning always, but I think especially in the last few years for people. And to be honest, as much as I intellectually understood how helpful it was to learn about the gods, their stories and myths, or embrace the idea of a great goddess loving all of us, it just never really felt tangible to me, it never felt real. It had no home in my body. It just felt like words that you say with no real heart or texture behind them. But then one day, about five years ago when I was meditating, a figure appeared in my mind's eye and she introduced herself as Freya. And I knew that that was the name of a goddess, but I didn't know much else.

And I didn't really do much with her visit at the time, but she showed up and she said that she had things to show me, to teach me. So after a little while, I began very gently learning about the myths of Freya, her symbology, and she just consistently. Kept showing up and teaching me things that were real and useful.

Things like how to direct my energy appropriately, what power I actually have access to, and I do believe that she eventually led me to learn about my ancestors and how to communicate with the land better. So very slowly and assuredly. Through really magical means that I can't quite explain. I came to understand that she is real or she's having an impact in my life, and I came to learn that she is credited with bringing to humans a practice of Germanic and Norse shamanism called seidr.

And if you looked it up, it would look like S-E-I-D-R in the English language. And this is a really old practice practiced by some of my peoples in Europe long, long ago. And one of the roles of someone who practiced save in their community was that of channeling messages that the community needed to hear.

And there's a new book by someone named Dean Kirkland. It's called Seidr Magic, the Norse Tradition of Divination and Trance. And if you're interested, you could check that out and learn more about this tradition. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But I've been in the midst of this sort of spiritual and ancestral awakening, and along that journey I have learned of and been visited by other great beings.

Hecate the triple goddess of the Crossroads, Baba Yaga, that great guardian of the woods. As I approached this Oceanic project this winter, I wondered, you know, who might be the Norse God of the sea? And it turns out it is Njord the Father to Freya. And all along the way, I have wondered, you know, this feels real, like these feel like conversations that are real. I feel like what I'm being taught is useful, that it's not just coming from my own subconscious, but I've wondered what are these entities really, I. It felt two dimensional. It didn't feel accurate to think of them, just like a simple pantheon of gods or just like they're humans, but they're actually divine.

It just didn't land. So I have been in conversation with them privately, honestly, hoping that no one would ever ask me about them, but also very humbled and honored. By the way that they have come through in my life and the way that they came through on January 28th in my visit to the sea, and I feel ready to share what their presence wants to bring forward to you today.

And I have learned a way of understanding these gods that feels a lot more grounded to me, A way of conceiving of them that feels. Much more useful and earthy and true, and I'm excited to share that with you and to see what you think. But before we get into that, I wanna tell you about my trip to the sea when I went to go and ask for a message for this community.

And this was essentially a 24 hour ritual that I stepped into. And I'm gonna tell you about my trip and then we will unpack what came up inside of it. So in my practice of save, there's these different techniques that you do and it opens up a way for me to have a conversation with, uh. Beings, helpful beings like Freya or like my ancestors, and in my saved practice before going, the week before, I asked Freya for guidance about how to prepare for this pilgrimage.

How could I be the clearest channel possible for this work? For what needed to come through for you? And she told me to drink mugwort tea every evening for six nights in a room to sleep more, to get really rested and to set a very clear intention. To be a clear channel, to be a mouthpiece for what needed to come through.

And so January 27th came around the day before I was meant to go, and I began to feel pretty sick. I got a terrible sore throat and my family had been sick the week before, but everyone had sort of cleared, been cleared of it, and I thought I had made it out without getting sick, but it, so it wasn't out of nowhere, but I.

Was surprised to have fallen ill at that on that day, so close to this trip. So I was managing that, and then I tried to get a good night of sleep beforehand, but the night before this pilgrimage, I had a terrible string of nightmares, which is really unusual for me. It was the most nightmarish night of my life.

First, I dreamt that there was a snake-like man who was coming into my home. I felt like I was in between sleep. I wasn't fully asleep. I was like trying to wake up sure that he was in the house, he was getting in, he was in really fit, full sleep. And then I had a dream that I was screaming at a man with.

Black eyes screaming at him that he was an abuser and his hate for me was just like radiating off of him. And I ran to a room and I locked myself inside to get away from him. And then I had a dream that a man who really hurt me and waking life and in this kind of realm of my spirituality, I had a dream that I went to the beach and he was there waiting in the surf.

I just approached him and pretended like nothing had happened, and in my dream later I went to a room and I saw a note that said, are you just going to pretend like nothing happened? And so I woke up really troubled. Exhausted, but knowing that these dreams were important, that they were related to this trip that I was about to take.

And in her book, women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes talks about this phenomenon. She calls it the Dark Man in Women's Dreams, and she says that it can serve many different functions, this dream. But one of the lines that I appreciated that felt true for me in this situation was. The dark man in women's dreams appears when an initiation, a psychic change from one level of knowing and behavior to another, more mature or more energetic level of knowledge and action is imminent.End quote.

So these dreams helped me understand that this pilgrimage was actually very important personally because I had never before declared in such a public way that I could hear the ocean that I was going to go, and I was going to bring back a message for you. That was scary and that kicked up a lot.

Clearly in my psyche. And these dreams, Arri arrived to awaken me to the fact that there were many layers to the work of that day and that something needed to die so that I could step into this. Service in this way. So I just share that in case you have your own terror inducing dreams. In that chapter, Estee says that these dreams can serve different functions.

Again, they can alert you to a part of your psyche that is held captive, that is trying to be liberated, or they can speak to an initiation underway. Or speak to something in your life that is in danger and ritual, which is just an intentional passage into a container where transformation can happen.

Ritual can often bring these initiations or these fears or these parts of ourselves that are captive. It can kick those up to the surface because ritual is what evokes change. So. I woke that morning with a terrible sore throat, completely exhausted, but determined to go. It felt even more important after these dreams.

So I gathered all of my gear, I got my offerings. I dropped my kids off at school, and I headed toward the coast. And I ended up at Arcadia State Park about 10 minutes up the road from Short Sand Beach, which is where our last podcast episode was located. And it was a very, very stormy day. Incredible winds.

It was raining. It was gray and cold. There were a few people at the beach when I arrived, but not many, maybe three. And the mood was definitely ominous. It felt scary. It had some of that same energy of my dreams, like I was afraid. And I got out of the car and I just let myself kind of land at the beach and say hello to the ocean and intuitively just follow where I felt like I wanted to be.

So I felt myself led down the beach and the wind was. So intense. It was almost blowing me over. It was just this incredible force and I had to get my bearings a little bit and I saw that there was a little cave where I could find some shelter. So I went into this little inlet of stone and I settled in, got a break from the wind.

I lit my candle and began making my offerings of sacred smoke. I brought fresh stream water for the sea. I brought salmon for seal and whale helpers that I work with and have been so blessed by. I spoke kind words and prayers for everyone, and it was not graceful at all. It was so windy. I could barely, I just had to like throw the salmon into the ocean in a not graceful way at all.

The water I offered splashed back into my face, like it was completely laughable, but. Actually, after I made those offerings and stated my intent and said hello to everyone, the wind really calmed down and the few people that were in the area seemed to just disappear. It got very quiet. It. And I began by telling the ocean why I was there to hear a message from my community and I told the ocean what was going on for the human community at that time.

How much pain and chaos and possibility were present, how much grief there was, how tired and lonely many people are, how we're not. Always very sure if we are up for this, if we're up for being in this time, that it's not clear what the way through is that the weight of it, the burden of it can be massive.

I told the ocean about how many people throughout history have been fighting against empire and capitalism and fascism. How many lives have been lost to these systems for so long over so many generations? And I paused. And a question came up and out of me and it, I had the same nauseous feeling that I've been having when I receive a message from the ocean.

So I believe that this question came from the sea herself. This question came out of my mouth. What will it take to end empire for all and for all time? I felt the power behind this question, and I needed to move. I needed to walk around with it, and I kept speaking this question, what will it take to end empire for all and for all time?

And I told the sea, I told the mineral the Great stones there at the beach, how much we need the memory that they hold of a time on Earth before empire because they have seen it. They have seen the Earth before there were any conquerors before the land needed to be dominated. They have seen a time when there was balance, maybe not constant peace or equanimity, but balance.

I asked them what was it like? How can we cultivate that again? And I felt called to name. Many of the ways that the ocean and her creatures experience empire themselves. The shipping containers back and forth, back and forth, constantly across the sea, the noise that they make, the oil spills that they create, the oceans task of carrying dead whale calves who starved to death.

The ocean's burden of carrying a floating island of plastic waste. They know. The Sea Knows Empire. What will it take to end empire for all and for all time. And I came to a moment of silence, walking very slowly around open to receiving any messages that wanted to drop in. And I walked by a little tide pool and I saw something white floating and it looked like plastic.

And I was like, oh, here we fucking go, you know, empire. But I got closer and I fished it out and it was a large lower jawbone of a fish. It had many sharp teeth, it was pure white. The blood and stuff purely picked off. It was a mouth, an ocean mouth. To me, it felt like a tremendous gift from Nod God of the sea and from the sea herself, a gift that said that they do want to be in conversation, that our words matter, that our words have teeth behind them.

I cried and I just said, thank you so much. I very carefully brought it to my little cave, and I learned later, once I got home that it's the jawbone of a ling cod, and I'll share a picture of it online. It's really beautiful. So I took that gift back to my cave and I sied in this question some more. What will it take to end empire for all and for all time?

And after the gift came, the message did too. The message was that you can't, you humans alone cannot end empire for all and for all time. It's too big a task for the human people. It is not your role. You are invited to invoke the gods. To invoke the great land and ocean spirits and bring them with your words and your intent to bring them into the human experience, like a tsunami to come and end empire for all and for all time.

And there was a very clear feeling associated with this. Knowing inside me, it was like. I kept getting this image of something coming up from way out in the ocean, way out in the depths coming up like a tsunami overhead over our heads and arms and flooding into our cities and our towns, and the messages continued.

They said that even the gods can't intervene without our consent, without our invitation. We need to be clear about what we want and how. It doesn't mean that it has to be wholly destructive, a literal tsunami that comes and hurts people or destroys their homes, but a greater power than we have access to alone is needed now.

And the old Gods. The Gods that our ancestors knew they are still here on this earth. They still long for us. They still dwell in the depths. They still want peace and balance for all and for all time, and not all Gods, not the Christian God, but the old Earth-based gods. And that's what I received. That was the end of my knowing.

And I felt my ritual coming to its natural clothes. So I said many, many thanks. I spent some time just enjoying the beauty of the sea and that place, and as I began to pack up again, the wind picked up and it became ominous again. It started to feel dangerous to be out there. It was so powerful. So I very humbly made my way back to my car.

I put everything in the car. Something caught my eye before I got in and it was a bald eagle circling overhead, and it felt like a reminder, an affirmation that we are all in this together. That the intention must be for empire to end, for all beings, not just humans. And that we are in this work very much together.

So I headed home. I slept very well that night and I needed at least a week, maybe a little more to digest what came through. And I have learned a lot in the last week letting these questions and that experience digest be digested inside of me. And I wanna unpack it a little bit. Let's start by talking about the question that came.

What will it take to end empire for all and for all time? The earth knows a time before empire. And we are indeed in this together with the earth. It is hubris. It's a form of human supremacy. To assume that this is just up to us to figure out, that's a big part of the problem. That's why we're here. We have forgotten the great web that we are just one small part of Empire is.

An old, but not older than the earth, an old way of relating to the earth that has become very, very destructive. Empire is the wound that led to the staph infection that we call capitalism. So there was a wounding when Empire came. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why. Humans began to relate to the land in a dominating kind of way.

A way that wasn't indigenous to them, to how humans lived for so long. No one knows why exactly that began. There's lots of different theories, but something. Was harmed. There was a wound between us and the Earth that we created, and we began to relate to the Earth in a way that was unhelpful, even untrue.

And so Empire existed before capitalism, great empires. The Roman Empire, the Greek empire, empires around the world. And that wounding, that orientation is what gave. Way to made us vulnerable to this infection of capitalism. So empire can exist without capitalism and did for a long time. But capitalism cannot exist without empire because in order for capitalism to continue the insatiable appetite of empire must be there to feed it.

And with the rise of empire, we see the rise of monotheistic gods, of patriarchy, of rulers. There is one king, one emperor, one God, one civilization that should rule them all. One crop that will grow in this field, homogeneity and domination are intrinsic to empire. And this is in direct contrast to how life actually works.

Life is incredibly diverse and multifaceted. There are no apex predators. Truly, there's no one at the top. This is a web. If everyone else dies or suffers, so too does the lion or the man or the king. Empire is a wound. It warps our sense of how life is, how it works, and sustains itself. It, it warps our sense of ourselves and our place here, what we're here to do.

It creates, it necessitates hierarchy and domination and power over, and it has an insatiable appetite More, more and more is needed and in order for peace to come. Real peace, real balance empire has to be healed. It has to be put down, and without that wound being healed, it will continue to fester to lead to further infections into the whole body of the earth.

Healing that break between us and the earth. Finding our place in the web again is a necessary part of this work. Healing those wounds of domination and conquering that manifest in us and in our relationships. So what will it take to end empire for all, for the entire Earth and all of her creatures? All creatures of this earth are suffering under empire.

The black bear peoples, the clams, the ash tree, peoples, all beings. So when healing comes, it needs to come for all of us. We can turn toward any other living creature and see that empire has touched them and their community. We can find a sense of true community and connection in that. Not because we're here to save anyone, but because it's hurting us too, and we can simmer and settle in the truth of being part of a much larger reality of experience.

So the healing that we need must be healing for all, or it's not enough, it's not big enough. And not just for all, but what will it take to end empire for all and for all time? And I don't know the answer to this. Certainly I don't think I'm meant to for all time, meaning permanently, meaning the scourge of empire on this planet is not meant to last forever.

That perhaps it will run its course. What if it is a wound that really can heal? What is needed in order for that long term, seven generations, 700 generations. Kind of peace and balance. I believe that if the sea is asking this question, that means that it is possible, that it is possible for there to be a permanent end to this kind of wound, this empire that we live in, that eats us up.

And this question reminds us, the sea reminds us that there was a time before empire when there was no singular ruler or group of rulers who were at war with one another to conquer more lands, more territory. There was a time, a long time. When humans lived in small communities that interacted with other communities peacefully, living in alignment with the cycles of the land, in touch with the great energies of the earth, with great energies of life itself.

If empire is going to end, we have to get back in touch with that ourselves. And the great wisdom of the earth that lives in the earth has to grow and grow in us, grow through us. What I have come to learn is that the gods are one way that the great energy and wisdom of the earth becomes manifest. And I believe I may have heard this first from Roone Yau Rasmussen, who has a YouTube channel called Nordic Animism, and I'll put the link to that in the show notes.

But it could also just be one of those ideas or threads that is revealed through many people because it's just true. So I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but see how it lands for you. The gods are born of the earth. The gods come from powerful places on our planet where great energies live and become personified.

I'm an animist. And animism is the framework or the orientation that personhood extends beyond the human person, that everything on this planet is alive. Is sentient is animated. Water is a force. It is an element, but when it comes into the earth and mineral and it becomes a river, it can take on a persona.

A river can have a feeling to it. Wisdom to share things to teach us a river can be our kin. A great mountain can have a strong energy to it, a pull that you can feel, and that energy can become known as a God or a goddess, or a great spirit in our civilized world, which is so built over now, we don't touch into these powerful places very often anymore.

With our roads and tourism and logging and the destruction of so much of our planet, many, many of these sacred nature places have been lost. We may not have had an experience of going somewhere and feeling the indwelling of spirit there like our ancestors did. It's not really fair to invoke the ancestors or invoke ancient ways of being or knowing or embrace animism or rewilding without also embracing the gods that our ancestors knew.

I see now that we are invited to learn about the old beliefs, and in doing so, we can be in touch with or awaken or collaborate with great big energies of the earth that still remain, that still remember humans song and prayer and ritual, and who want to weave something new with us now. In her book, Caliban and the Witch, Sylvia Federici wrote, the world has to be disenchanted in order to be dominated.

This world used to be and still is in many places, enchanted, where there are great, powerful places where there is a diverse array of beings, human and not human, divine and mortal places where the inexplicable happens. Places that feel so sacred and these old gods, these old sacred groves of trees, these mountains where they lived, these caves that were portals into the underworld, those had to be destroyed so that empire could grow, so that Christianity could spread, so that we could become slaves to a capitalist economy and way of life.

The Gods are energies of the earth that are born of the earth and that are strengthened through relationship, through collaboration with others, including humans, the gods. These energies, their presence can grow through humans relating to them, relating to their places. Invoking them on behalf of the Earth, for the earth, for us creatures of the earth.

Freya, who comes from the wild forests in the north, Nord in the wild sea. Heti in the great stone caves of the South Baba Yaga of the dark woods. These are great old land spirits. And in your heritage, you have ancestors who knew the old gods, who made altars to them, who went to their sacred places, who prayed to them, who asked them for help.

And we don't have to fully idealize this. There are some gods and some myths that I don't wanna bring forward. Oftentimes, I think they were projections in the midst of empire's, growth, projections of patriarchy, stories and myths. That included, you know, rape or conquering or punishment or cruelty.

Perhaps those were more human projections than the truth, or perhaps there's different gods who bring in different kinds of energy. I don't know. I do know that the Christian God was born from Empire within Empire serves empire. The Christianization was necessary in order for capitalism to gain a foothold in Western Europe and to spread beyond.

The missionaries were the great bringers of capitalism into the world, and we do not have to give our energy. To the gods or the, the stories and myths that serve empire. There were old Gods land spirits, literally born of the earth, who care about the earth, who care about the Earth's creatures, which we are.

I believe that the gods can care for us, like the earth cares for us, and give us access to the great creative power of the earth. Give us access to the steadfastness, the stability, the capacity to be with the unknown, to be with death and the beyond. And that in learning from them, being open to a relationship with these old land spirits that live in your heritage, that the gods are blessed by that as well.

And that the earth is blessed because the gods are great energies that can get bigger or more diminished according to the energy that is sent to them or shared with them. I believe the old Gods are still here, but with so little energy, so little relationship afforded to them, their presence is limited.

It's that idea of, you know, what you pay attention to expands. And this is true on a massive scale as well. If we want to invoke the power of great beings who care about ending empire for the good of all we can, we can put our attention there and find what feels real to us at this time and we can see what happens.

What I felt the ocean and the gods show me on that day was a reminder that we are absolutely not alone. That we as humans cannot fix this, but we can channel or invoke more power than we think we can, that we can hold ourselves. And that clarity of intent and clarity with our words is really, really important.

We're used to being frivolous with our words, believing they don't have any real meaning or power behind them. But I'm finding that when it really counts, when we are inside of ritual, we wanna be very specific about what we say when we go to the ocean. We can come with very intentional language and we can use that to strengthen our relationship to the sea or to the forest or to the desert, wherever we are.

When we pray to the ancestors, we should be specific about what kind of help we want, when we want it, and how and when we invoke the gods of our ancestors. We should also be very clear about what we're asking for and how. We have the right and ability to do that, to invoke that power as the descendants of peoples who had relationships with these beings.

And it's okay if we don't live in our ancestral homelands any longer. The gods were born of a place. They are of that place, but they are not bound to it. If you have a felt connection to Woden or Qua Yin or Shiva, you can cultivate that relationship through your attention, your words, and by invoking their help on behalf of the human community for the good of all.

The old Gods are not in competition with the spirits of the place where you are. The earth can hold a vast number of energies at all times, and the more power that we can awaken that is helpful, the better. So you are being invited to invoke great old ancient powers. And to find the words that feel the most true, that give you a full body sense of something coming up and through you, like you're pulling from the depths of the sea, a great tsunami of care and love and protection to cloak.

All peoples human and more than human. And in doing that, we con, we conjure up something very old and we bring it down or up into this world. We weave it in. Freya, come, come and protect these children with the ferocity of a mother bear. To swallow the weapons of Empire into your depths with minimal harm to any living beings.

Simple prayers that you feel in your body, making a clear invitation and invocation. I'm coming to learn that our role as humans is to be weavers through ritual. Through connection, gratitude, and prayer. These are what weave our world together that help keep our world together. But we cannot weave the end of empire alone.

What will it take? Greater powers, great big energies of old, the power of mountains and thunder rolling across the plains in a wild, wild sea. May they come in, come into our cities and our suburbs come into our cubicles, and school pickup lines bring us into an ancient vitality that so many of us long for that white supremacy and empire and capitalism keep us separate from.

May these old, old practices, these old powers bring us an ancient vitality that can actually stitch this world back together in a beautiful way that can heal the wound of empire and bring peace for our children, for our children's children, for the children of the eagle, and the bear and the whale, for all beings, for all time.

This is what I was asked to share today, and I hope that it has been of service to you. The next time your heart aches for what is happening at the hands of empire, see if the name of an ancient God comes to your tongue, speak their name and invoke their power, and choose your words wisely. In a couple of weeks, I will be back with you with another episode, and I believe the theme of power will continue.

It seems central to who the ocean is and what we're meant to be taught in this season, but I'm along for this ride as much as you are, so we shall see what comes through. On that same day, on February 24th, I will be making another pilgrimage to the sea, and I would love your thoughts and support, but I would also love to take your prayers.

If you have a prayer that you would like me to share with the sea, you can fill out the little form that's linked to in the show notes, and I would be honored to carry that with me and to speak it to the sea on February 24th, and we'll see what kind of response we get after I do that. In closing, I wanna say thank you again to members of Eagle Creek for supporting me and this show financially.

I encourage you to contribute if this podcast is meaningful to you and you have the means. If you can't afford $45 a month for Eagle Creek, I welcome whatever dollars you do have at buy me a coffee.com/megan leatherman. I also welcome your shares, reviews of the show. Comments, messages. I love hearing from you and I thank you so much for your presence today.

I'm excited to see what continues to unfold in this wild oceanic journey that we're on. Take such good care and I'll see you on the other side.

PodcastMegan LeathermanWinterComment