Øjerum, The Celestial Body, 2022

Handcut collage made of vintage magazines

LET US FLY, FOR A WHILE

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Have you ever dreamt of flying? Throughout my life, I have had numerous dreams of flying, flying low and slow, flying inside rooms, flying fast and freely. Each and every one of them has been a blast.

If only one could fly like birds. Have fun, gain perspective, see everything clearer. I miss hearing their song, here in the middle of a grey Copenhagen. Instead I listen to Cosmo Sheldrake's recordings of and music with endangered birds, an album called Wake Up Calls.

I connect deeply to my inner joy (and channel my inner grandma) when I listen to and watch birds. But not only that - birds take the consciousness up, says Josh Schrei in an episode on birds at The Emerald Podcast - probably my favorite podcast episode ever.

As Christians (or Christian nations) enter a festive season, crowded with both elves and angels, it is no coincidence that the latter has wings like a bird, being a messenger of divine news. Long before Christianity, the bird has been an animal of great spiritual powers.

Melchior Lorch, Tranen [The Crane], 1549

Etching / Collection of SMK

The vast silence of the beginning of time, said the Egyptians, was broken by the trumpeting of a white goose. The world was stimulated into being by birds. And it didn’t end there: The bird was a symbol of life and rebirth, bringing a dead person’s soul to Osiris. Birds were all over Egyptian hieroglyphics and mythology, including the ibis, the vulture, the owl, the stork, the heron, the ostrich, and the falcon that rides on sunbeams to blind its prey. No wonder the Christians appropriated these powerful creatures and stories to ornate the celestial bodies of their angels.

In European mythology, medieval literature and occultism, the language of birds was mystical, divine, and used to communicate with the initiated. The power to understand the language of birds was a sign of great wisdom. Just look at the Norse god Odin with his ravens of the mind, Hugin (thought) and Munin (memory), who flew around the world, and told news to Odin upon their return.

Lorenz Frølich (efter forlæg af Johan Thomas Lundbye,

efter forlæg af Bing and Ferslew), ODIN, 1845

Collection of SMK

FEATHERS OF HOPE AND IMAGINATIVE POWER

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Earlier this year, when my mobility was challenged because of a broken pelvis, I went to a sound healer. It was seriously like being massaged on the inside. After a while, I got wild visions. Ayahuasca-like, I guess (I haven’t tried). I turned into several wild animals. My favorite embodiments were 1) a wolf that ran with its pack down a snowy mountain at night and 2) an eagle, flying high, feeling strong and seeing everything from above. Becoming two-legged again was a bit of a downer.

“There is that in us that longs to fly. What do we do with such longings? Do we allow ourselves to fly? Or do we feel instead something like: the world is in disarray so maybe I should stop flying? There is pain in the world so maybe I should stop flying? I feel guilty when I enjoy myself so maybe I should stop flying? Exactly the opposite: there is pain in the world so I must take flight to see, to see, to see what to do. […] For the issues facing the world demand that we free up the imaginative consciousness. All the upward trajectories that we learn from birds can help up us imaginate, envision what this world and our lives can be and how we can possibly see our way out of the mess that we’re in, if we don’t gain perspective, if we don’t let ourselves soar,” says Josh Schrei.

Today, Dec 14, Being in Practice turns 1 year old. 3014 different individuals have spent an average of 6.57 min on www.beinginpractice.dk. Most of them Danes, followed by Americans, Swedes, Norwegians, and Brits. The average newsletter opening rate is 69% which is a lot. Sometimes some of you write to me in response. I love that!

A year ago, I ritualized my website launch with friends. It aired; my thoughts flew out in the world in a shape that now resides in the Cloud. Please don’t get my metaphors wrong: It is neither angelic, nor birdlike, but all of this that I now do, with inspiring participants in mentor sessions, in the spiritual group, in courses and retreats, with all of you, THIS is the air beneath my wings that keeps me soaring, carried aloft. 

Hope is the thing with feathers, Emily Dickinson wrote.

I hope you enter the new year, flying.

Thank you for 2022,

Birgitte

WINTER PRACTICES

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Hello Darkness, my old friend!

Darkness is someone’s playground, someone’s dinnertime, someone’s restitution. Darkness is a container for someone’s grief, someone’s fear, someone’s party, someone’s flight, someone’s lovemaking, someone’s death, someone’s birth. Most women go into labor at night. Everything emerges from Darkness. Darkness offers solace, invites dreams and regrets. Problems grow in Darkness. We all carry Darkness.

Let’s invite Darkness to the table.