Owl Dream

Last night my dream was full of owls. I can recall seeing the faint glow emanating from the sun after it had dropped below the horizon. Tall spike-like trees with small tufts on top were scattered behind a fenceline. Great Horned Owls perched atop the trees, calling to one another. I remember seeing one fly from its perch to sit next to another.
The next scene I can remember was from inside of a house with large windows facing a porch. More owls were perched on the railing, including a single giant Gray Owl. The Gray Owl was facing me, and had its left wing partially outstretched. I remember its intense, piercing eyes digging into my soul.

Seeing Deity in Other People

I've had interactions with people where I truly experienced something magical, where at times I've recognized something in them that exuded divine energy.

For example, a charming crone woman named Mary used to care for my brother and I occassionally. Each time we knew she was coming to our house to look after us we asked her to bring her VHS copy of the movie "Bear." Another ritual that became part of her visits was my asking her to let down her hair ("Rapunzel! Rapunzel!"). I can still remember the first time I saw Mary's real hair. She wore a short, typical, curled wig like many a crone I met as a child. When she revealed to me it wasn't her real hair I asked her if I could see it. I practically had to beg her to show me, so eventually, she did. She removed her curly accessory, and revealed a braided bun, bobby-pinned down tightly. (In retrospect it looked difficult to get it just right to fit into her wig.) When she let down her hair it was such a brilliant sight to behold. My exact words were, "You have unicorn hair! You should always wear it down, it's beautiful!" I loved Mary's hair so much. I remember wishing out loud that my hair could be like hers someday. It was the longest, brightest white hair I'd ever seen, and it really did sparkle. I learned recently that Mary moved to one of the Carolinas, and to learn she's still kickin' really warmed my heart. Magical Mary of the unicorn hair, so bright like goddess Holle.
In recent years I met the mother of my fiancé's half brother, who wears her beautiful unicorn hair down...and her name so happens to be Holly. ❄

Recently while working at the bookstore I met an eccentric man who claimed to be a homeless preacher. He wore an extravagant faux fur scarf, a wide brimmed hat, and a fabulous glitter nail polish in shades of blue and purple. He had a limp, so he walked with a cane, and when we made eye contact I noticed he had icy blue eyes, one of which looked like a glass eye. When I noted that mentally I thought of Odin! At one point he asked for cardboard to protect the art prints I sold to him. He proceeded to take out his knife to cut the cardboard into the proper size and shape. He stated aloud, "Most people act all scared when I use my blade, but not you." I found my indifference surprising as well, since I'm normally hyper-vigilant. I trusted I knew his intentions for drawing his knife, and that saved me from experiencing fear. He had that strangely familiar, curious presence to him that I sense when one of the all-father's ravens are near. 💅

Have you ever met someone who reminded you of a deity, or had some magical mysteriousness about them? Let me know in the comments below!

Etymology of Goddess Hel, Hela Helle, Holda, Holle

Etymology of Goddess Holda/Holle/Helle/Hel

"bright lady" translated in the following languages:

Afrikaans, "helder dame"
Estonian, "hele naine"
German, "helle Dame"
Yiddish, "helder dame"

German words containing the name of the goddess Hel, Hela, Helle, Holda, Holle:

English "hell" translates to "Hölle".
Eng. "bright" is "hell."
Eng. "cave" is "Hohle."
Eng. "elderberry" is "Holunder."

Holda

Hulda: according to www.behindthename.com, the name Hulda is
"Derived from Old Norse hulda meaning "hiding, secrecy". This was the name of a sorceress in Norse mythology. As a modern name, it can also derive from archaic Swedish huld meaning "sweet, lovable"."

Holle

(This post is a work in progress, please check in again for updates.)

Water & Venom

The following are my personal anecdotes related to water and venomous snakes. Some of these stories depict waking life experiences, and others are from the realm of dreams and shamanic journeys.

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When I was a small child I had a near-drowning experience at the Frio River. My parents and four siblings were enjoying the water in a myriad of ways. Mom was sunbathing on the shore drinking wine coolers, Dad was holding my baby brother's hand as they waded in the shallows, and my three older sisters screamed and laughed as they "cannon-balled" from a rock into the deep end. While I watched my sisters jump I kept my distance. I was (and still am) terrified of heights, and falling. I preferred being close to the earth, for I felt so much safer close to her.

I was inspecting river rocks, and smiling at the perch as they nibbled at my toes. I recall noticing a small ripple of waves as a small snake swam past me. I began following the snake downstream. I remember hearing the rapids ahead of me when I slipped on the slimy rocks beneath my feet. I was swiftly carried away by the river current.

At some point I managed to wrap my arms around a small boulder, but my head was completely submerged under the rushing white water. I struggled to hold onto the rock, but my legs weren't strong enough to fight the current. I struggled and panicked, it all happened so fast.

Suddenly I noticed my body was no longer fighting. My fear and panic dissipated, and I looked up at the water's surface. The light was dancing gracefully on the rushing water above me, which seemed to move in slow-motion. Bubbles of air escaped from my lungs, and I felt very peaceful. The melody of the river surrounding me calmed me. I was no longer afraid, and felt as though I could fall asleep.
Suddenly, I was pulled from the water, and I choked as I gasped for air. The distance between myself and the river below me made me feel like I was on top of a tree. That "tree" was my father. I remember resting my head on his shoulder, and feeling so safe and warm as that six foot redheaded man carried me upstream.

As we headed upriver my father told me to stay with my family, to not wander off, and to never tell anyone about what happened. I remember hearing the worry in his shaky voice. I'm sure he was painfully stricken with guilt. I felt so terrible for upsetting him that I didn't fully realize what I'd just experienced.

When we made it to shore he placed me on the warm, dry, sunbleached river rocks, and wrapped me in a towel. My brother was sitting at the water's edge with his feet in the water, exploring the rocks and minnows. I looked towards my mother who was still lounging on a beach towel in her bikini... always working on her tan and boozing it up when she wasn't working out at the gym.
I turned away, and looked down the river, and my thoughts returned to that little snake... wondering where he'd gone.

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I had another scary experience at a river when I was twelve years old. It was less than a year after my father had passed away. I was tubing on the Nueces River with my mom, stepdad, and two of my siblings. We were out there within six months after the flood of '98. The water levels were naturally higher than usual. At one point on the river there was a fork, and my upper body wasn't strong enough to stay on the safe course. My inter-tube and I were pulled in the wrong direction, and thrown into a tree that was bent over in the middle of the river. My body was thrown into the air while my tube was stuck in the tree. I managed to grab hold of long grass hanging over the water's edge. It sounds ridiculous, but I remember being scared that a water viper would appear from the tall grass and strike me, on top of the possibility of drowning.

My stepdad swam towards me, and managed to grab me. He was strong enough to stand in that powerful water. I remember at one point his foot sunk into a hole in the riverbed, but he pulled himself out. He carried me to shore, and also managed to retrieve my tube.

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You'd think that after having those experiences that I'd never want to go near a river again. Quite the contrary, I've visited rivers several times since. I celebrated both my 16th and 18th birthdays at the Nueces River along Chalk Bluff. I have many more joyful and pleasant memories of rivers than unpleasant ones. However, the trauma of those experience still affect me to this day. They manifest as suppressed fears that pop up occasionally, and they usually involve water snakes.

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When I was a kid I must have watched a nature program on the Discovery Channel about sea snakes. I used to daydream that a black banded sea krait would swim up the drain and into my bathtub. Yeah, I had an active imagination paired with post traumatic stress induced anxiety. It didn't help that I had older siblings who'd taunt me, and tell me that snakes could swim up the drains of bathtubs and toilets. Oh yeah, you can be sure as a child I was worried they'd bite my ass while I was on the throne.

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When I was sixteen I was walking through tall grass with a couple of friends. Baggy jeans were the style back then, and I'm thankful they were. I felt something heavy stuck to my right pant leg, and walked towards a clearing next to a road to see what it was. It was, to my horror, a big fat water moccasin! Instinct took over as I started to kick my right leg violently into the air. Eventually the snake released the grip of its jaws on my jeans, and its body landed on the side of the road. I ran towards my friends who had made some distance ahead of me. The snake had milked some of its venom into my jeans, and it felt like fire ants were on my right calf. I lifted my pant leg to see if there were ants on my leg, and was relieved to see there weren't bites of any kind. My skin must've been irritated from rubbing against the venom on my jeans.

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In my twenties I had four experiences with snakes while trail running. The first time was when I almost trampled on an indigo snake. The second time was when my fiancé and I saw an unusually large coral snake being poked at by kids with a stick. We warned the kids, and they apparently had no idea what they were messing with. On a different day we came across another group of kids throwing rocks at a rattlesnake in a tree. We told the kids to stop, and my fiancé joked about job security and Darwinism (dark paramedic humor). Recently I was within inches of landing my foot on a copperhead snake during a trail run. It was so bright and sunny outside that I didn't see it until it quickly slithered off of the trail right from under my foot. That close encounter with the copperhead really shook me up.

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Throughout my life I've had several different dreams about snakes and bodies of water. I recall one dream I had as a preteen about laying on the shore next to Medina Lake, and a pure white cobra with pinkish ruby red eyes emerged from the water. The cobra approached me, and pierced its fangs into my neck like a vampire. I laid there as though offering myself up willingly, without an ounce of fear.

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More recently I was on a shamanic journey to the lower world with the intention to meet my power animal. I was guided by Sand Dollar to stop searching the lands of the lower world, and instead search the water. I started off by floating on the surface in case my power animal was a waterfowl. That didn't work out, so I swam down to the floor of the body of water. It was there that I formally met my power animal, swimming as though it were performing a dance. It swam in spirals and circles around my body. Wouldn't you know my power animal is a sea serpent, who came to me in the form of a black banded sea krait. Snake medicine plays a major role in my life. Snakes that live in water and on land symbolize my journey in this life. They represent the parts of me that are seen in the light, and that which conceals itself in the dark.

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6/20/2017

Last night I asked the universe to show me something I needed to know or learn in my dream. Early this morning I dreamt both my fiancé and I were bitten by a coral snake. Fortunately my fiancé had a dry bite, but I was not so fortunate. It was such a lucid dream that I felt the pain coursing from my bite on my left hand, and throughout my body. In my dream my mother went with me to the hospital, and as they began to admit me I handed her both my triple lioness/cougar ring, and my engagement ring for safekeeping.

I remember feeling and acting delirious chit chatting with the ER technician or nurse, whoever it was I first met at the hospital. They set me up in a room on a saline drip, and left me there until a venom specialist could arrive. It felt like forever, and I was so tired. I remember my mom being there as a group of students walked by, and she said that they were "piggy-backing." I must have sounded confused because she asked a nurse if she could help explain the term to me, and I remember exclaiming in frustration that I knew what it meant.

The pain from the bite had turned into overwhelming exhaustion. I looked at the tiny fang marks on my left hand in between my thumb and forefinger. It looked like there were four fang marks. Right before I awoke from the dream the venom specialist showed up, and he seemed furious with the staff at the hospital. Apparently I wasn't breathing very well, and the fact that I was on a saline drip alone was ridiculous.

I awoke and shed a few tears, and rolled over to hug my fiancé. He woke up just long enough for me to briefly tell him about the dream. I turned to look towards the window in our bedroom, and a coral light was shining from in between the curtains. I opened the window blinds, and gazed upon the coral, periwinkle, and golden yellow sunrise.

Holle, Goddess of Many Names

 

(Press Play)

Translation:

"Hail, Holle"
Written and Sung by Birgit Knorr

Hail, Holle, dear mother,

Hail, Holle, high woman.

Souls sway deep in the water,

Souls think deeply in the lake.

Feather flakes fall quietly,

Feather flakes fall.

Give us good work today,

Give us good work now.

Your flakes,

The snow is shining in the country.

Bathe me in thy well,

Well brings me to your country."

Holda, her motherly voice travels from deep within her well, echoing in all directions of time and space. Come to her well, and submerge yourself in her healing waters, and find yourself rising from the deep to a magical world on the other side. This place is our inner world, and Holda asks us to work diligently there. What appear to be mundane domestic tasks to the outer world are mindful practices that balance our inner world. Holda teaches that there is no separation between the inner and outer worlds, and that they influence one another. Therefore, magic is found in the seemingly mundane tasks that life requires of us to survive and thrive.

For a moment I request that you ask yourself: what brought you here to read about Frau Holda? How did you come to know her? What can you learn from her to enrich your life?

 "Holda in Summer" by me, Nixie (Melani)

My Personal Journey With Holda

Upon reflection, I believe Holda has always been present in my life. She was mysterious and nameless in the past. Holda's symbols have become obvious to me when I've reflected on memories, stories I've heard and read, experiences outdoors in nature, divination, dreams, along the hedge, and on the other side. 

A memory comes to mind from when I was a child playing under a large live oak tree next to the house where I spent the first twelve years of my life. I remember looking up into the tree boughs at the sunlight filtering through the green leaves. I felt a loving, protective warmth surround me in the company of that tree. That is the earliest recollection I have of connecting to a goddess' presence. In one of her many guises Holda has been described as being a lovely fair-haired maiden, but when she turns around her back takes on the form of a tree. That memory came to mind when I read that about her.

In 2015 I had an intense experience that jolted me out of a deep sleep in the dark, wee hours one morning. Suddenly, I was gasping for air, and found myself in that strange yet familiar place between waking and dreaming. In my mind's eye I could see a crone with empty black pits where her eyes should have been, and her mouth stretched open as her scream whipped about like a tumultuous, howling wind. Her skin was weathered and leathery, shriveled and pulled taught over her bones. She was frightening at first, but I didn't turn away from her. My heart was beating rapidly, but the longer I faced her the less scary she seemed. I could feel my breath become calmer, and my heart settle a bit. I couldn't resist looking away from her eventually to take in my surroundings. The dream was in a dark, windy place, where leafless trees thrashed about like hands of the undead. There were cyclones whirling about in the distance, but the crone was pointing with a long, knobby finger to where I needed to go. There stood before me an old stone well, glistening with slimy algae in what appeared to be moonlight. I peered into the well, which went from being a bottomless pit of darkness to a whirling spiral of gray mist. I could sense the crone urging me to get on with it, so I jumped in. I pulled myself out of that in-between place, and woke up with tears streaming down my cheeks, and my heart racing from the intensity of the experience. I didn't know who the crone figure was at the time, and could come up with a list of goddess names that could have been hers.

Holda appeared to me again during the 2016 summer solstice full Rose Moon. During my runecast that evening Berkana came up, and while I was reading one of my books on runes to refresh my understanding of the rune Holda's name was listed under the deities associated with it. It seemed like the rest of the words on the page blurred out of view, and her name struck me with a significant feeling of recognition. It was like divine timing, and it elevated my heartrate like my dream from the previous year. Only this time from excitement instead of fear. I realized later on when referring to my runecast journal that Hagalaz, Uruz, and Laguz appeared in several runecasts previously. It was like she was spelling her name for me, H - U - L, and I didn't make that connection until I saw her name listed under Berkana! I knew in my heart that I'd discovered the name of the goddess that has always been there for me. I devoted myself to Holda on June 20, 2016 as my matron goddess.

Is Holda's flax spun into your own personal story? If so, I would love to hear about it.

Other names associated with Holda:

Fru Goda, Frau Goda, Frau/Mother Holle, Mother Holly, Frau/Mother Rose, Frau Woda (feminine form of Woden, also known as Woden's consort), Holda the Merciful, Holde, Holl, Holle, Hollerbeier Fraa, Holly, Huld, Hulda, Hull, Hulle, Mother Goose. Her name is often preceded by the German honorific Frau, which translates to "crone" or "woman."

She is viewed by some as an interpretation of Bercht/Berchta/Percht/Perchta, Freya, Frigg/Frigga, Hel, or Hela (for one must travel down the well to access her dwelling in the land below), the creatures known as huldra/huldrafolk, elves, faeries, Nerthus, the Norns (because she shares the same physical deformities caused by spinning), the Eastern European Baba Yaga, Eostre/Ostara, Epona, and Saint Lucia or Lucy.

Holda in one or more of her manifestations is an integral figure in several heathen and/or pagan traditions:

Urglaawe, Deutsch folk magic, and Pennsylvanian Dutch Braucherei.

CORRESPONDENCES

ANIMALS: Aurochs (extinct species of cattle), Cat, Donkey, Goose, Hare, Horse, Spider, Swan, Wolf.

HOLIDAYS: Vernal equinox (she is a goddess of abundance and fertility), Walpurgisnacht, Harvest time, and Yule. In modern times she is still venerated around the Christmas holiday.

COLORS: Black, blue, brown, gray, green, gold, red, and white.

MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES: Belschnickel/Belsnickel, elves, faeries, Holden, and possibly the Huldra, or Huldrafolk.

OBJECTS: Apron, basket, conical hat, boline, distaff, down-filled bed/pillow, hail, ice, linen, elderberry syrup, plough, scythe, sickle, snow, snowflake, spinning wheel, wagon, wheel, and yarn.

ORIGIN: Teutonic (ancient Germanic culture), Northern/Western Europe, Scandinavia, and possibly as far east as ancient Mesopotomia.

PLACES: Anywhere snow is present, Cabins/cottages, caves, farms, fields, forests, gardens, graves, groves, hearths, homes, kitchens, lakes, meadows, mountains (especially the Brocken Mountains), rivers, rows of crops, sky, springs, wells,  the underworld, and vernal pools.

PLANTS: Apple, Beech, Birch, Elm, Fir, Flax, Holunder/Elder tree; Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) also known as Hollebier Schtock), Holly, Wacholder/Juniper(Fire Tree, Kaddig, Knirkbusch, Kranetbaum, Kranetbusch), Lady's Mantle, Linde/Lime Tree (Tilia cordata, not the citrus fruit variety), Maßholder/Field Maple (elder maple), Pine, Rose. (Her devotees are urged to ask her permission before removing any part of these plants out of respect.)

PRACTICES: Agriculture, Blanzeschwetze (communicating with plants), crafting, domesticity, child-rearing, hard work, raising livestock, spinning, textile work, weaving.

RUNES: Berkana, Hagalaz, Uruz, Laguz, Isa.

STONES: Garnet, Snow Quartz, Stichtite.

TRADITIONS: Braucherei, Deutsch/German folk magic, Ecclectic Wicca, Northern Tradition Paganism, Ecclectic Paganism, Heathenry, Teutonic Paganism, Urglaawe. 

*****This post will be frequently updated with more correspondences and references.*****

REFERENCES/SOURCES

Berkano

http://www.rune-magick.com/pages/aettir3/02_berkano.htm

Empowering Your Life With Runes by Jean Marie Stine

"Grimm's Fairy Tales " by Brothers Grimm

Holda's Shrine: Who is Holda? - Northern Tradition Paganism

Frau Holle by Jenny Jinya

http://www.northernpaganism.org/shrines/holda/about.html

Norse Magic by D.J. Conway

My playlist for Youtube videos on Holda:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtpZrzC1dZMRXXvnbkY4OsSpEnBgUB3wo

"Mother Goose Rhymes" by various authors

The Sacred Journey and Migration of Frau Holda Into our Modern Reality, and her Many Names and Faces by SummerGaile

http://orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/FrauHolda/index.htm