The Völva Stav Guild is an educational and cultural healing cooperative of 6 women dedicated to the principals and methodologies of Völva Stav.
Our Mission - Restoring Northern European root cultural traditions and providing opportunities for communities to heal inherited cultural grief in ourselves, our families, and our communities.
This Summer, Volva Stav Founder, Kari Tauring will travel to Northern Norway to deepen her studies around kvann with teacher and culture bearer Øistein Hanssen. She will learn directly from lived tradition rooted in kvann (Angelica archangelica), an indigenous Arctic plant once so important in Nordic life that you could pay your taxes with it into the Middle Ages.
It provided nutrition, healing properties, sweetness, and protection. The Sami made a flute from it called fadnu.This ephemeral spring flute was nearly lost until Øistein Hanssen recreated it.
During this time, Kari will learn to identify and harvest kvann, appropriate for creating this traditional flute made from its hollow stem. She will study the stories, songs, and cultural contexts of the plant across Sámi and Norwegian traditions.
Her teacher, Øistein Hanssen, will guide her through hands-on practice, conversation, and comparative study of written records and lived knowledge.
This includes attention to how Sámi and Norwegian traditions have met, overlapped, and been disrupted through historical forces including Christianization, which reshaped relationships to land, language, and people.
Volva Kari is a Norwegian-American Culture Bearer and community elder whose work helps many of us reconnect to older, pre-colonial ways of being rooted in land, body, and relationship.
Through her teaching, people learn to “peek under the lefsa”—to look honestly at what has been covered over, set aside, or reshaped in order to adapt to dominant cultural systems.
This work is about strengthening our roots so they are not shaped by disconnection or white supremacist frameworks, but by living relationship, story, and practice.
We (The Volva Stav Guild Community) are raising $1,800 to support:
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A fair teaching stipend for her teacher
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Food and shared meals during the stay
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Support for local transportation
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Gifts of reciprocity and cultural exchange
Two Sámi fádnu flutes with six finger holes made from the angelica plant (Photo Leif Wäppling 2010. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0)
Grow Kvann, Support the Lineage
We are offering 3 young kvann plants on a sliding scale donation:
$30 — Supported Access
$45 — Sustaining
$60 — Community Supporter
Kvann (Angelica archangelica) is a warming, protective, and strengthening plant used historically in Northern European herbal traditions for physical, mental and spiritual healing. It has also been planted near homes as a protective presence and used in ritual and musical traditions.
When you bring a plant home, you are participating in a living exchange of care, knowledge, and relationship.
Join Us in Community
We invite you into this circle of support through upcoming events connected to this work:
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May 30 – 3pm: Donyelle Headington’s Plant Diva Class - Special Guest Kari Tauring
Join us for a one-day Kvann (Angelica archangelica) Deva Class in the garden, an immersive, hands-on experience with this powerful Nordic plant known for healing, sweetening and vitality. We will spend the day in close relationship with Kvann, learning how to identify and work with it, exploring its medicinal and energetic qualities, and listening to the stories and traditions that surround it. This class is experiential. We will touch, taste and observe Kvann and see what its medicine is for us individually.
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Rosemåling | Frode Inge Helland
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June 6 – 10:30am: Norway House
Nordic Plant Lore Series - Kvann (Angelica archangelica) A plant so precious that you could pay your taxes with it. It was so special that saga kings gave it as a gift. So important, stiff fines were placed on anyone who steals another's kvann. That’s what this Arctic plant has meant to Norwegians into the late Middle Ages.
These gatherings support the unfolding of this work of this community.
The health and vitality of our communities is reflected in how we support our elders, teachers and culture bearers.
We are grateful for your support, in whatever way you are able to participate!