Initiation Into Reindeer Shamanism

From my journal:

12/7/22, 4:40 PM, full moon.

For the full moon, I did a ritual to dedicate my shamanic work and healing to the spirit of Reindeer. After offerings (I included Rat Spirit to give him my thanks and accept his assistance and teachings as well), and dedicatory words, I journeyed swiftly to the cave entrance I’d been using. This time the path to and through the cave was lit by torches.

Once inside I could see paintings of primal images – hunting, animals, and other scenes, and then found a big painting of Reindeer. People were dancing and drumming around a fire in his honor, and I could feel their love of and longing for Reindeer. I was moved to tears, seeing this emotion I know reflected by the people gathered, feeling the immensity of Reindeer, and how close I felt to him. He was so important.

At some point, my grandfather joined me, and he showed me a scene I had seen before, but this time with the details of making the flying medicine. It contained reindeer lichen, the red mushroom with white spots, the blood of a reindeer, and part of a feather from a crow or raven. The lichen is a direct connection to Reindeer and the earth. Reindeer taught his people how to fly and the connection through the lichen and blood facilitates this. The mushroom – a hallucinogen and sometimes treat of reindeer – is what enables a reindeer’s flight, and the bird is the first animal we are taught to shape-shift into. This mixture is prepared in a sacred place by men only, a ritual I witnessed in an earlier vision.

My grandfather took me out of the cave and into the boreal meadow I’m now familiar with. We knelt in the grass and I repeated my desire to learn from Reindeer and dedicate my shamanic path to him. We were under the constellations associated with Reindeer, and I could see his shape glitter in the sky.

Reindeer is enormous and moves in a slow, thoughtful way. His power is more akin to Anubis’ than Coyote’s. The love and devotion shown to him by his people over the millennia have made him strong and potent. He recognized me as his child and accepted my offerings. He told me that all his people are his children – he watches over them, feeds and houses them, and knows them intimately. He knows he is responsible for their survival and is gentle and kind toward them. 

He assisted me into flight as a black bird and I flew over a larger herd of migrating reindeer. There were hundreds of them and I could see the Reindeer People following along in their wake. In contemplating what it would be like to hunt them, my modern sensibility was initially challenged by the idea of eating an animal that feels so special and sacred. But Reindeer helped me feel the powerful connection this gives his people to him. He becomes part of their bodies – it is a sacred connection.

At some point the music and my vision shafted and I saw myself first-hand, getting dunked into freezing water. I came up and out and was lying on the ground, my hair cold and wet around me. Then I saw my prone body fully wrapped up, and drumming, dancing, calling, and rattling around me. The water immersion – so dangerous in the numbing cold – had been part of shamanic training or initiation. It was a test of strength, one I eventually failed. My small body couldn’t recoup the warmth the water stole and I succumbed to the cold and died. I was seeing my funeral – the music was to help my soul travel to the next world. 

My grandfather blamed himself. He knew I was too young but I persisted in asking to be trained and I might have survived if I had been older and bigger. I stood beside his spirit as we both watched the scene which would eventually end in my funeral pyre. The ground was too hard to bury bodies in much of the year, so they sent them on to the next world in the smoke from their pyre (which is reminiscent of the deliberate soul travel that I experienced). I held his hand and felt his anguish; I reminded him that I had come back, right by his side to continue our work – as if no time at all had passed. I couldn’t comfort the version of him we were watching, but I hoped some part of him would know I’d find my way back.

I am very aware that I am beginning this journey tonight after watching the end of my work from that previous life. I have stepped back on the path where I stepped off before and am ready to continue. I journeyed back after saying goodbye to my grandfather, seeing again the sacred grove and the worshipful fire and painting. 

In a journey several weeks later working with my Grandfather and shamanic lineage, I asked about my initiation – I had only started that process, would I have to continue it? The answer was no because I had already completed it. Dying as a young woman while training to be a shaman, and then returning after my death as a grown woman and mother to the same practice and lineage is evidence of my having become a full shaman (although from an outside perspective, I’m an apprentice – not practicing fully in the community yet because I’m still learning).

This article is part of an ongoing series that follows the path I’m traveling of Reindeer Shamanism, and how I’m building my skills and practice. If you’d like to read more articles in the series or follow along from the beginning, they are collected under the blog category of ‘My Shamanic Path‘.

Header image by Benmar Schmidhuber on Unsplash