By VölvaKona Bethany Jacobson
Bethany is an Elder, working with the Norse Goddesses, plant spirits, flower essences, accessible gardening, SoulCollage® and exploring folkways and cultural healing practices. She is learning more about living with C-PTSD, healing trauma, and moving it out of the body.
Recently I undertook a seven week workshop facilitated by Minneapoils-based Minkara Tezet of the Cultural Wellness Center and Cara Carlson of Anam Cara House to discuss Cultural Wellness Approach: A Community Care-Giving System. This was a golden opportunity to learn from people who have worked intensively for years in community building and focusing on community health. We had Zoom meetings in August and September with a group of people in the healing community to discuss three foundational documents: People’s Theory of Sickness, the Philosophy of Community and the Principles of Community/Cultural Health Practices from the Cultural Wellness Center.
This experience was very challenging to me, as I was immersed in a well developed format and approach which was quite formal. It was a different learning culture than any other which I had worked with. Over the initial three or four meetings, I found myself experiencing strong feelings of unease, and even frustration as I tried to learn, to navigate the material and the process of the discussions. Each person in turn shared how the different concepts were landing with them, or how it tied into their experience. It was difficult for me, as it seemed that I didn’t “get it” based on the feedback from some of my comments. There was something I just wasn’t understanding! This healing in community stuff was HARD! Still,I continued to show up for the meetings.
I have been studying Völva Stav and other Northern Traditions for over 14 years now, and have many tools in my toolbox. My personality is very strongly focused on working and getting things done. Push, push, push! I share my Nordic cultural traditions with others, and teach the principles and tools of Völva Stav, and ways we can heal ourselves and our family orlog (the cumulative lives and experiences of our people). My practices have been very centered around learning and doing, so this talking about where things were landing was really mystifying to me.
One of the habits of my life is from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for Highly Effective People; Habit 5: Seek To Understand, Then To Be Understood, so I decided to explore further. I went to the Cultural Wellness Center’s website to learn more about their work, and there it was. They say, “ the process is our product”! Their process is 1) Listen 2) Study 3) Contribute and 4) Transform. Another numbered list to guide the understanding! Finally…clarity. These concepts are described in depth on their website, which I encourage you to explore. In this process I wasn’t supposed to learn what to do. Rather, I was to participate in the process! Aha moment! So much wisdom has been developed from these amazing community builders!
This is a time of great division in our country and distress on our planet. There is violence threatening many in our communities, and dis-ease for the future. Humanity is experiencing intense challenges of wars and nuclear threats, and our wonderful earth is intensely challenged with climate change and environmental damage. I sometimes feel weak and frustrated that I can’t move the mountains of orlog that came before me. We are facing big issues in these times. This wisdom based on listening in community can be a very effective process to guide all of us as we face these crises together. We CAN purposely create a healed, strong and supportive community using all the tools at our disposal.
At the end of the class we were asked to summarize our thoughts about these sessions. I was unable to synthesize everything which I had experienced until I consulted one of the 300+ cards that make up my SoulCollage Deck. This card, Völva Reflections, and using the “ I am the one who” process helped me pull it all together. The final words on the reflection are, “The shared insight of the community created and colored a beautifully complex and strong structure which continues to nourish each of us.” That is our job as humans to participate in the shared insight of the community, to actively listen and create or recreate these strong structures which will heal us and our precious planet.
Title: Völva Reflection
“I am one who was able to sit and to share in a community of healers who reflected so many aspects of experience, perspective and potential. Together we created a sacred space to learn and to ponder. Each of us considered our sacred journey and the beautiful work of creating community healing and for individuals healing in community. I was able to listen more than I spoke, and I waited to speak until I had dreamed it first. The shared insight of the community created and colored a beautifully complex and strong structure which continues to nourish each of us.”
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