Deep into the heart of the mound, the supplicants walked.
Shuffling among the tightly enclosed stones, their skin brushing the cool surfaces.
The only light came from the one guiding torch ahead, carried by the Wise One.
Slowly, the people trickled into the mound’s heart: its inner chamber.
To the East and West, South and North they stood.
And the Wise One, most magickal of all, illuminating the center.
With one single light.
One truth.
One voice.
One People.
One Spirit.
To the Ancestors the Wise One called, the shout ringing around the chamber.
It faded away into nothingness and silence erupted.
Suddenly, the torchlight blew out. An invisible wind snuffing its flames.
A chill crept across the gathered People, an anxious sense of anticipation.
Then, from the East they came.
From the South they came.
From the West they came.
From the North they came.
Enjoined in Spirit, they came.
Bearing gifts of good fortune, luck, fertility, and knowledge to the people.
Another year, another cycle of prosperity.
The Wise One lifted the torch and Light sprang forth,
Mirroring the rising of the Sun and the dawning of the day.
And the gathered people left the mound, flowing out into the new world.
The Wise One watched them leave,
Comforted in the knowledge that all was now well,
For the People’s work….
Had only just begun.
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Grand tidings and welcome to you on this, the twentieth episode, of Beyond the Seas. My name is Kieran and here we are again, back at it for another week. Milestone award achieved! Twenty episodes! Henceforth, every time I write out the script on my laptop, I have to hyphenate the numbers at the top, dammit! Hahaha. And thank you to Swailes, The Bell Witch Podcast, for sharing my trailer on her latest episode and helping me spread my show throughout the witching, pagan, and folkloric community. WOW! I am just so gobbed and happy that the show is taking off, and I have avoided the pitfalls of, I think it’s called, “podfade.” The burnout people get from doing a lot very quickly and then losing the passion and drive for it all. Regardless, I am so happy that all of you are here with me today. If you have not yet already: @beyondtheseaspodcast on Instagram, @thefeatherwitchnyc for the show’s weekly tarot collaboration with Claudia, and a share and follow on the show on your podcast app of choice. Thank you, thank you, dear listeners. Ahhh, let’s goooooo!!
And now, acting and book updates! SO!! The auditions are going super, super well: I have a callback tomorrow morning, actually, so spread all the positive energy my way for that. It’s two songs to sing and I cannot wait to tell those stories in the room with the Casting Director. Now, books: so The Eagle and The Raven is staring at me from my desk as I have dived into some play readings and other books. I read When God Comes for Breakfast Don’t Burn the Toast and Wonder of the World, as well as starting Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. These plays and books were lent and given to me, respectively, and I am devouring them! I love, love these comedic plays—because I have found so much audition material from them—and the book is just breathtaking. Ergo, I highly recommend them. And stay tuned next week for more news about the callback.
And now, the Card of the Week! I absolutely love the card Claudia pulled because it is so relevant to our topic this week. It is…the Chariot. Which, as Claudia made mention, is the seventh card in the deck—and follows all the spirits and beings and energies you, The Fool, must first encounter before taking the journey on the Chariot. This card is all about forward moving motion—and conquering what is in front of and within you that impedes your travel. Of course, the Journey represents many different things in life: spirals, milestones, joys, sorrows, and the unifying element of Spirit that lives and resides within them all.
And now, the Wine of the Week! Now this week, we’re shaking things up a bit here, kiddos, because…I’m going to review a white wine. I KNOW! I can hear all of you gasping throughout the world, saying, “But he’s a red wine guy, what the hell is happening??” So long story short: I had dinner with a dear friend, after he came back into town after a ten-month contract on a cruise ship. And we have a loooooong standing history with certain New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs. And at dinner, after talking about splitting a bottle, we thought, “Ah hell, what the heck?” And so, a Sauvignon Blanc this week it is: this bottle is Dashood’s 2022 Marlborough Blend Sauvignon Blanc. Now again, I’m a red wine kind of guy—and I save the white wines for rather special occasions. And this wine certainly did not disappoint: it was so BRIGHT and had strong notes of basil, lemon, peach, pear, sunshine, and roses. There is something about New Zealand whites that just sing to me…which can be absolutely dangerous hahaha. It is best paired with salmon, arugula salads, sour cheeses like goat or bleu, roasted golden potatoes, and catch ups with a dear friend after long time apart.
And finally, this week’s topic. The fifth and final element of our world and the sacred circle: Spirit itself. Known by so many names around the world and in different practices, it is the uniting element of all others in our world. It lives within you and within me. Ergo, what is this elusive and mysterious, nigh-on ethereal, element? What creatures or beings populate its domain? Correspondences we may use in our daily practices today? And how do we finally close up the casting of the circle?
For now, grab your favorite bottle of red, find a comfy chair, and close your eyes as I tell you the tale of the Elements Series of Spirit—and take you…
Beyond the Seas.
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Spirit. Element of All. Traditionally, it is the final element to invoke when casting the sacred circle or treading the compass round. It is the element of Divinity itself, of the Deities that watch over and Guide us along the way. We call upon whomever we so choose in this moment of the circle cast, as a means of brining in the Divine into our space and life. It is a profoundly powerful and personal moment, that is as individualistic to the practitioner as it is meaningful.
Personally, I call upon multiple deities in this moment and within this moment, either during the circle cast or whenever I feel the moment of connection to Divinity. Now, by no means, does that suggest you have to do the same. There are so many beautiful paths and traditions under the umbrella term of Paganism that are as important and special as all others. So go with your flow and see what Current carries you—it is your personal connection to Spirit that matters, and no others.
Spirit is the realm of the Divine, of the Otherworld. It is the utmost ethereal quality we can imagine. It is pure, powerful, mighty, magickal, and transcendent. It created all Life and all Universes—and it flows subtly and invisibly throughout both of them. Now, in terms of science. Quantum Physics theorizes a Quantum Field of energy that literally permeates all things. Within, different particles interact with each other and ultimately affect all other matter. Ergo, our thoughts and words today may affect the farthest, most distant star in our Universe. Or the thoughts of others on this planet. Or the formation and growth of trees, plants, rocks, and species.
Take a moment and think about that. Truly. Think about it.
I have a personal prayer that I say every day: Life is Spirit and Spirit is Life—and Life is drawn to Life. Folks, Spirit is Life: it is light and darkness, day and night, Sun and Moon—balance and equilibrium. It is both because Nature is both. And both shades of Spirit are inherent within all of us. That is what is so magickal about Life: it has the capacity to choose. To think. To be, exactly as one wills. So mote it be! Hahaha.
Ergo, while we contemplate this idea of duality and spirituality inherent within this element, what creatures also pop up in its domain? That sounded a lot like internet jargon and that is exactly not what this podcast is all about. So, let me transport us into the mystical world of the Ancestors, Angels, and Demons.
The first foray I want to dive into is something that is extremely important to my own practice, and connects me powerfully to the realm of Spirit. The realm of the dead is something I used to fear greatly, but now—after resonating with my Ancestors and interacting with them frequently—it is a realm that is rewarding and comforting. The following information comes from Daniel McCoy, on his website Norse Mythology, and speaks of the practice of Ancestor veneration from a Northern European/Germanic/Norse perspective.
“Ancestor veneration is a practice that nearly all pagan peoples, past and present, have shared, and the pre-Christian Norse and other Germanic peoples were certainly no exception. The dead remained in their community’s collective memory long after their passing, and were believed to confer blessings upon the land and the people they left behind. This may have been especially so if they were properly revered by their descendants.
“In Old Norse literature, the most frequent gift of the ancestors is the fertility of the land, which, it hardly needs to be pointed out, corresponds very well to the ecological role of a decaying body – providing nourishment for other, living members of the ecological community. The hamingja (“luck”), one of the semi-autonomous parts of the self in the Norse worldview, is often said to have been passed on to a descendant. He or she is thereby granted the ancestor’s propensity for success. Sitting on a burial mound in order to receive creative inspiration or an answer to a burning question is another commonly noted practice. In addition to these specific customs, the ancestors are petitioned for help in all areas of life.
“It may have been that those who had brought particular prosperity to their people during life were held to also be able to grant particular prosperity to their people after they had died and become an ancestor. Take, for example, the case of King Halfdan, renowned for the benignity of the climate and the success of the crops that the Scandinavians enjoyed throughout his reign. Upon his death, representatives from the districts over which he had presided congregated to request the internment of his body in their home district, so as to ensure the continuation of their recent good fortunes. The king’s body was eventually divided among the eager diplomats.
Cemeteries were often located at the edges of a farmstead or village. Their placement there served as a representation of the claim the living inhabitants felt they had on the land they worked. The living could point – literally – to their ancestors having lived in and worked the same land.
“Intriguingly, the line that separates human ancestors, elves, and land spirits (Old Norse landvættir) in Old Norse literature is quite blurry. While it would be straining the evidence to suggest that the three categories are ultimately synonymous, it would be in blatant contradiction of the evidence to suggest that they’re cleanly separate groups. The ancient Germanic conception must lie somewhere in the middle, although precisely where is impossible to say – due, as with so many other areas of our knowledge of this worldview, to the sparseness of the primary sources.
“Land spirits and elves occupied much the same role as the ancestors in the religious customs of the pre-Christian northern Europeans. They were propitiated in much the same way and held influence over many of the same aspects of the lives of humans. Even the dwelling-places of these types of beings overlapped; elves were traditionally associated with the burial mounds and chambers of the human dead, and would commonly receive sacrifices at these places. Perhaps the most striking example of this connection comes from The Saga of Olaf the Holy, one of the first Christian kings of Norway. In this saga, Olaf and a servant ride past the burial mound of the king’s ancestor and namesake, who is now called by the name of Ólaf Geirstaðaálfr – literally “Olaf, the Elf of Geirstad,” a title that clearly implies the currently elfin state of the king’s forefather. The same passage also insinuates that King Olaf is the reincarnation of the deceased Olaf, presumably through the hamingja. Part of the elder Olaf seems to have become an elf, while another part has been passed on to Olaf the younger.
“Today, we tend to think of the dead as either ceasing to exist as anything besides a chunk of inert matter to be stuffed with formaldehyde so as to delay its reintegration into the land, or as an incorporeal, floaty thing sufficiently removed from the tangible world as to have no influence upon it or relationship with it at all. For the ancient northern Europeans, however, the dead continued to reside amongst their human and ecological community in some capacity, and had the power to bless those who blessed them.”
Fascinating stuff, right folks? Now, before we hit our break, I want to share a lovely myth from the Indigenous Peoples that highlights the connection of Ancestors and our world. It is titled The Great Spirit Ancestors and is found on the Planet Oz Kids website, which I find so cute as a name, and as explained by Oban. So, here goes.
“In the ‘time before time’, the Earth was dark and silent. The Great Spirit Ancestors slept underground, until one day they woke and broke through to the surface. The sun then came up out of the ground and the Earth had light for the first time.
“The Ancestors began to travel around, and on their journeys they created the things we see in the land – the mountains, rivers, trees, waterholes and plains. They made the tribes of people, who became their descendants, and they made all the animals. They also made water, air and fire – and the moon and stars.
“The Ancestors were tired after creating everything. They lay down to rest and sank back into the ground again. But their spirits stayed on the Earth. They went into some of the rocks and trees and other parts of the land. These things and places were very special. People believed they were sacred, and could only be visited and seen by men who had learned about the Ancestors and had been initiated, or made keepers of their knowledge.
“The Dreamtime stories, ceremonies and dances have been handed down and are an important part of an Indigenous person’s ‘Dreaming’ today. Their understanding of how everything was created also includes ideas and beliefs that are special to their own tribe and relate to the land they come from.
“The Ancestor Spirits are still here, in the forms they changed into at the end of the Dreamtime.”
Refill your drinking horns, your goblets, your chalices, for the second half of the Elements Series of Spirit after this brief fellow podcast shout out.
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This week’s fellow podcast shout-out goes to The White Witch Podcast. Folks, I found Carly’s show last summer and I was hooked immediately! She is so grounded and down to earth, with much knowledge and wisdom to boot. She’s funny, emotive, kind, and witty. I love turning her show on when I take my walks in Manhattan—it feels like you are walking with a friend and having a grand conversation. So do what I do, follow Carly’s show, The White Witch Podcast, wherever podcasts are heard.
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And we’re back! So now that we have the Ancestors walking beside us, we must now turn our gaze upwards—to the stars, and beyond. To the realm of Angels & Demons…which is a fantastic book, too. The following information comes from Linwood Frederickson, on the Encyclopedia Britannica website. So strap in kids, this is about to get rather academic. Alrighty, ready? Take a sip because here we go.
“Angel and demon, respectively, [are] any benevolent or malevolent spiritual being that mediates between the transcendent and temporal realms.
“Throughout the history of religions, varying kinds and degrees of beliefs have existed in various spiritual beings, powers, and principles that mediate between the realm of the sacred or holy—i.e., the transcendent realm—and the profane realm of time, space, and cause and effect. Such spiritual beings, when regarded as benevolent, are usually called angels in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and those viewed as malevolent are termed demons. In other traditions, such intermediate beings are less categorical, for they may be benevolent in some circumstances and malevolent in others.
“The term angel, which is derived from the Greek word angelos, is the equivalent of the Hebrew word mal’akh, meaning “messenger.” The literal meaning of the word angel thus points more toward the function or status of such beings in a cosmic hierarchy rather than toward connotations of essence or nature, which have been prominent in popular piety, especially in Western religions. Thus, angels have their significance primarily in what they do rather than in what they are. Whatever essence or inherent nature they possess is in terms of their relationship to their source (God, or the ultimate being). Because of the Western iconography (the system of image symbols) of angels, however, they have been granted essential identities that often surpass their functional relationships to the sacred or holy and their performative relationships to the profane world. In other words, popular piety, feeding on graphic and symbolic representations of angels, has to some extent posited semidivine or even divine status to angelic figures. Though such occurrences are not usually sanctioned doctrinally or theologically, some angelic figures, such as Mithra (a Persian god who in Zoroastrianism became an angelic mediator between heaven and earth and judge and preserver of the created world), have achieved semidivine or divine status with their own cults.
“The term demon is derived from the Greek word daimōn, which means a “supernatural being” or “spirit.” Though it has commonly been associated with an evil or malevolent spirit, the term originally meant a spiritual being that influenced a person’s character. An agathos daimōn (“good spirit”), for example, was benevolent in its relationship to humans. The Greek philosopher Socrates, for example, spoke of his daimōn as a spirit that inspired him to seek and speak the truth. The term gradually was applied to the lesser spirits of the supernatural realm who exerted pressures on humans to perform actions that were not conducive to their well-being. The dominant interpretation has been weighted in favour of malevolence and that which forbodes evil, misfortune, and mischief.
“Because human beings are much concerned with boundaries—i.e., what makes them different from other animate beings, what makes their community (and thus their world) different from other communities (and other worlds)—their view of the cosmos has influenced their understanding of what are called angels and demons. The cosmos may be viewed as monistic, as in Hinduism, in which the cosmos is regarded as wholly sacred or as participating in a single divine principle (brahman, or the Absolute). The cosmos may also be viewed as dualistic, as in gnosticism…in which the world of matter was generally regarded as evil and the realm of the spirit as good. A third view of the cosmos, generally found in the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam, centred on a tripartite universe: celestial, terrestrial, and subterrestrial. This third view has influenced Western concepts of angels and demons as well as scientific and metaphysical concepts.
“In the biblical, Hellenistic (Greco-Roman cultural), and Islamic worlds of thought, the terrestrial realm was a world in which humans were limited by the factors of time, space, and cause and effect. The celestial realm, generally composed of seven heavens or spheres dominated by the seven then-known planets, was the realm of the divine and the spiritual. The subterrestrial realm was the area of chaos and the spiritual powers of darkness. At the highest level of the celestial sphere was the ultimate of the sacred or holy: e.g., Yahweh, the God of Judaism, whose name was so holy it should not even be spoken; Bythos, the unknowable beginning beyond beginnings of gnosticism; the heavenly Father of Christianity, known through his Logos (the divine Word, or Reason, Jesus Christ); and Allah, the powerful, the almighty, and the sublime God of Islam.”
Whooooweeee, that was a SLEW of information. Now, what I find interesting is the Tripartite cosmos view, as it comes from the far distant shamanic past: the Upper, Middle, and Lower worlds. In many European cultures, the concept of the Otherworld was not above or below, but rather beside: the Ancestors, Angels and Demons in more monotheistic religions, populated the Otherworld—and literally walked beside us. In the ancient burial mounds and dolmens, the remains of the dead would be buried or put on display, their spirits believed to reside within that sacred space and retain their close proximity to the land of the living.
How interesting, then, to note, that theoretically speaking, did the concept of Angels and Demons arise from the Ancestors, as monotheism appropriated indigenous beliefs throughout history? Take a moment to think about that. So, I find that working with Angels and Demons is, personally, best approached through contacting the Ancestors. Of course, that is my personal practice, and others actually call upon the spirit beings known as Angels and Demons. There are paths that exist in our world that draw down malevolent and benevolent beings, for purposes of their own. Now, this show neither supports nor refutes such practices—it simply states that such practices exist. If you want to make that your jam and jive, power to ya.
For, folks, these spirits do exist, within the realm of Spirit and the spirit within us. They are linked to us, a part of us. For Spirit is the unifying element, the primordial nature that permeates all life. It is the simplest of the five elements, yet the most profound. Ergo, let’s take a look at its correspondences. The direction of Spirit in the Sacred Circle is the Center, the Axis Mundi, the World Tree. It is associated with the Infinite, in terms of time, and all four seasons in the wheel of the year. Its suit in the Tarot is the Major Arcana and its colors are White, Blue, Purple, Silver, and Clear. Magickal tools used in the Craft are all of them, haha. Use herbs like oak, ash, mistletoe, birch, and apple—since it has a pentacle at its heart, and crystals like quartz, amethyst, pearl, moonstone, opalite, and opal in all works of Spirit Magick. Spirit rules all of the Zodiac and is ruled itself by The Universe. Finally, its energy is both receptive and projective, for it is the embodiment of Give and Take, Guide and Release—balance.
And now, back to the card of the week.
Spirit is within all of us, uniting us not only to each other, but also to the Heavens.
It is the link between Above and Below,
The very breath of life itself.
So the next time you want to argue with a random stranger,
Or see violence and madness in the world,
Cast from one person to another,
Remember the spark of creation within
And lend a guiding hand to help heal the Universe.
To heal the peoples.
So hail and welcome Watchtowers of the Circle, powers of the Universe and the Gods,
Be welcome to this our sacred circle on this day.
And remind us all, as you flow through our enjoined hands,
And link heart to heart, and spirit to spirit,
That as we work, breathe, live, and exist together,
Our magick will always be stronger…
Because of it.
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The stories, research, and production elements were done and edited, respectively, by me, Kieran, with sources attached in the description. If you want to be a guest on the show, or have a topic you wish me to explore and discuss, send me an email at beyondtheseaspodcast@gmail.com. And be sure to hit the follow button, on whichever platform you enjoy the podcast, and look forward to more content next week. Until then, seek the veil between the worlds, and allow yourself to travel…Beyond the Seas.