I have a story. The other night I was happily engrossed in reading of the book, ‘My Enemy's Head’ from Maria Kvilhaug’s ‘Blade Honer’ series. ‘My Enemy's Head’ is book two in the series. Here is where I must admit something about my way of reading. I typically cannot read novels. They put me to sleep. If they are not putting me to sleep, then I have no time to read them in a manner of which will allow for me to become fully engrossed within the stories. Why is this you might ask. Because, after all, you might be thinking to yourself, ‘Gee Brigitte you sure do spend a hefty amount of time researching anyway.’ This is true. You are correct, I spend loads of time researching, though it is typically in between teaching. How and why is this different from reading a novel you might ask. Well, for me it’s that the research is done in a very ADD type manner. I cannot fully express how my mind works with that. I can only tell you that this ADD type of researching allows for me to abruptly stop when needed. However when I read novels, I picture every word and every scene in such a dramatically drawn out way that it moves much slower for me than when I am researching data. The movement in my mind is very slow, not unlike when one views a movie that is what you might consider to be ‘slow’ in build up or movement. Akin to the movie ‘Valhalla Rising.’ I prefer movies like that. So that being said, I do not get the chance to delve into novels until ALL of my kiddos are asleep. By this time, it’s late at night and I myself would prefer to go to sleep as well, instead of reading a novel. As such I began Maria’s ‘Blade Honer’ series sometime last year. Unfortunately I was not able to get past the first five pages do to sleeping schedules of a new little one. Queue in our Viking Freyja, Ingiríðr Brìghde. Though I must admit, that within those first five pages I was HOOKED. Thus I waited patiently for the night which I would again pick up ‘The Hammer Of Greatness’ book one in the ‘Blade Honer’ series. Eventually that time came to pass and it was actually only very recently that I chewed through the first book and devoured it! Craving more!
On to book two, ‘My Enemy's Head.’ Which I just started reading only a couple of days ago and THIS is were I about shit my pants, but not really. I mean metaphorically shitting of my pants of course. You see as I read the book I came across a scene that was nearly straight out of my own dream world from last year. When I say dream world, I do not mean day dreaming, I mean, as in dream time when one would fall to sleep and begin dreaming or lucid dreaming. Yes this book contained parts of my dreams. Where then do these dreams come from that were so profound to me? They were so very intense, these dreams, that I needed to document them upon waking. So I question, are dreams literally worlds created out of genetic memory? If this is the case than that might help to explain why I was dreaming of scenes from Maria Kvilhaug’s books before I had even begun to read them.
Included are two excerpts from my dreams which I am referring to. You can see that these dream time dates are clearly way before just a couple of days ago. You can also find the dreams in their entirety on my face book time line. I now can surmise that the statues within my dream had to do with Irminsul. I say this because IT IS only now that I understand, thanks to reading Maria’s book, that the statues within my dream were very similar to the descriptions of the ancient Irminsul, not of the Irminsul of the neopagan depiction. How did I not know of Irminsul before reading book two ‘My Enemies Head’, yet have such dreams? I must ask myself this question as I am personally a bit shaken to be reading pages which are depicting my very own dream time events. To see the statues in my dream with your own eyes, only then would one begin to understand the awe, the complete awe of such a… a… a what? What can a soul call this? Not a coincidence? That term would be too demeaning of the actual nature for which all that was experienced within the two dreams. Yet I must ask myself, for as much as I throw myself into anthropology and the study of history, how did I not know about the emperor Charlemagne (Karl der Grösse) destroying the Saxons Irminsul in the Spring of 772? How did I not know of the Massacre at Verden in October of 782? Is it because so much German history is passed over, out of guilt and association of such a terrible period in time as that of the rise of Hitler. That those of us with German, Saxon and Norse or Nordic lineage should turn away from our own cultures histories, even those histories which are pre the nasty man named Hitler, purely because of him? I should not give that any power by continuing to eggshell step over my German and Nordic lineages because of a deranged man whom I hold no respect for. After all my paternal Great Grandmothers maiden name is Westfall/Westphal, coming from a long lineage of Westf(ph)allians who immigrated long ago to this American land. Like that of WIDUKIND the Saxon of Westphalia. My Westfall ancestors come from Westphalen Prov. Rhine Valley, Germany. I should have been able to put this piece of the puzzle together. However I simply could not due to my ignorance upon the subject of the history of the Saxons. Such a shame.
Though perhaps if we take into consideration that I am but only within the infancy stages of learning about particular regions of worlds history. Yes, yes I know that must sound bizarre to some of you. Yet consider this, consider that I began my historical anthropological studies with information regarding Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian Dynasties. From there (only because of my daughter's interest) the mythologies of the Ancient Greeks, (though I did not get very far if I may be truthful.) As my daughter Willow grew in age she branched off and researched the Greek histories and mythos further on her own. It was really rather interesting that by the age of eight she was researching just like me. She could tell me more about the Greek mythologies than that of what I had uncovered during my own research. I loved it! From then on I seemed to have developed an ADD way of researching, completely skipping from era to era, nation to nation, country and peoples. Just completely moving all over the board game of our Earth and history, as if time lines were something which in fact could be jumped. I think you get the point. I really do not need to continue on with my time bandit tendencies do I?
I also feel that I should note one small detail. That it was back in 2005 however that I had an incident occur whilst I was working. I remember it clearly. In the middle of focusing on my work, I was dramatically interrupted by being shown pictures of the far Northern regions of the Earth. In my minds eye I was shown Ancient Nordic peoples. I was shown that I was to put up, inside of our home, figures and symbols of the Nordic gods. Though it had left quite the impact, I chose to push this away. I did however tell Matty about it, of how I felt that the images for which I was shown must have been his ancient ancestors. Little did I even begun to understand that this interruption from my daily work would come to form an important part of my understanding of who I am, and where I and my ancestors come from. Being born in America and thus an American unless you have an elder within your family who keeps the records (as I was lucky enough to have that matriarch, but not lucky enough that she withheld certain things.) you tend to lose sight of who your ancestors were and where it is they came from. I also beg to say that it extends deeper than that, for unless you are an archaeologist or a historian, you tend not to think of the most ancient ancestors. Those of whom began your different lineages. We are even taught within the genetic genealogy arena that the ancient paleolithic dna isn’t of matter, that it’s too archaic and really only good for getting haplogroup identification. Yet it matters to me. Call me a dreamer if you will, as it is my ancestors who speak to me through my dreams.
April 25th 2016
Dream: Medieval times.
I'm watching from above, spirit self, disembodied self, viewing the scene though at a distance. I'm at some type of serfdom. The peoples either live in filthy conditions, or it's that a rain had recently fallen. It's crowded. So very very crowded. The peoples are loud, noisy, clustered together, to close for my liking. Muddy, filthy. There are also noble men there. They are on horses. They are dressed in elegant combat wear. Their horses also are dressed with fine garments and beautiful blinders. The colors of blue and yellow. The 'Knights' take a baby from the crowd of surfs. One nobleman stakes the baby on the end of his jousting spear. The nobles then take turns jousting with this baby still stuck to the jousting pole. I, in spirit form, scan the surfs. I am shown a woman screaming and crying out in pain and suffering. She's the mother of the baby, she's on her knees being held down by several noblemen. They are tearing at her dress and lifting up the end as she tries to fight them off. No one helps her.
The dream switches scenes.
It's modern time, night. Dark dark night. New moon type of night. I can see the stars clearly. I'm on some man made created pavement.
May 27th, 2016
Dream changes. I’m outside, in a field with woods all around. I'm walking with a group of people in similar fashion as an old funeral march. My friend Jon Kreher is beside me. We are all dressed in late 8th century Belarus clothing. We are headed towards several very large statues. As we approach there is something very wrong. Men wearing red tunics and fur lined hats come in to view from behind the statues. They are archers. They begin attacking. We are a large group of women, men and children. It's chaos. Everyone is running into the fields. I duck onto my belly and crawl through the field in the direction away from the fighting. Moments of complete fear grip me as I stealthily pass by these men in red tunics. In the field, still on my belly, quite a distance from the fighting, I find an oblong stone which is roughly the size of my palm. It has designs carved and stained onto it. Swirls of sorts in dark dark blue. I raise up ever so slightly in order to get an idea of how far I've really traveled. I look again at the stone in my hand. Clenching it, I close my eyes and think upon my people. The statues awaken!
I wake up.
For more information I urge those who are interested to please, please read Maria Kvilhaug’s books! They are extremely well written. Though they are categorized as fiction, they read as truths.