Enter label: how the Viking spirit can help us heal
Plus: 2 Viking books, 1 podcast, warrior meditations, phone-free walks, and the healing item of the week
Old friends are the last to break away…
-Viking Saying
Dear Companions,
On challenging days, illness can feel like a relentless Viking raid, plundering the body's treasures and leaving life stranded on the shores of Northumbria. So, on better days, we seek within our souls the Viking spirit, to outmaneuver the trickster gods like Loki, and conquer new kingdoms.
While my routes in life are yet limited, I channeled the Viking within in abandoning my phone on my walks this week. After all, Vikings voyaged to and ransacked new kingdoms using entirely tech-free weapons and navigation like sun stones and sun dials (nearly 1000 years before the 18th century Wager voyage in this post).
Feeling fragile this week, I coaxed my spirit toward that ideal. I imagined I was Ragnar Lodbrok, the legendary Viking, embarking on a journey devoid of modern technology. Strolling on the inlet, menacing longboats carved with dragon heads appeared on the horizon, while the rolling waves bore the face of Odin, the Norse god of wisdom and war, as if he had come to guide me on my quest.
Below please find my notes from those walks, and the accompanying Viking source material which filled my mind. Kindly share with any history buff or person who could use an unplug.
Why the obsession with Vikings of all warriors? Why not the Visigoths, or the Lombards, for instance.
Dan Carlin thinks it’s because they played a major role unifying England due to the very serious threat they posed, which then of course impacted so many other cultures of the British Empire. Within just a few generations, kings of England would soon be descendants of Viking settlers like William the Conqueror.
But maybe it’s our fascination with the physical ideal—the tall, broad Dane-type bodies and tattoos. Stories passed down of the strongest Viking warriors like Olaf I Tryggrason (968-1000) who could throw a spear with right and left arms with equal strength.
Tolkien who wrote the greatest fantasy books of all time was also inspired by Norse mythology. Not just Odin, but Freya, the goddess of love, Thor, the god of thunder, and namesake of Thursday (Thor’s day), and Fenrir, a monstrous wolf in Norse mythology.
But in the Healingvrse, I like that they pay homage to their invisible people. A spiritual people, the Vikings probably sought guidance from seers for insights into the underlying causes of chronic illness. There must be Scandinavians today who still believe in elves and dwarves.
5 reasons I went audio free
The commitment to going audio free came for a few very specific reasons.
In order to get myself moving while ensconced in pain, I began to rely heavily on podcasts and other content. As a result, I might hit 6+ hours of news, podcasts or spaces in a day (including falling asleep). It served as more than a distraction; it was a voice of a friend. At times, I spiraled completely out of control. A part of this has become counterproductive for healing.
A year ago, my dad sent me an article about how a woman cured her migraines by implementing one hour of silent walks in nature. That stuck with me as a good idea.
Lex Fridman boasts about long runs listening to history podcasts. I want to tell him: you have to turn it off sometimes. Given my habits, the hypocrisy would sting if I did.
This resolution goes handedly with my current obsessions with the Vikings.
I made an offshoot pact with a friend I made on Substack, Arman, who takes notes on various societal issues, and I felt obliged.
Notes from Audio Free Walks (Days 1-5)
Day 1… Gail winds on my first try, naturally. Also, my stomach hurts. I ignore it due to the reasons above which had coalesced into obligation. I notice the different colors of stones. A graying sky. I start walking backwards because it's so windy. I end up running home within 30 minutes—cold, soaked, and hurling to the bathroom, as trees were ripped out by their roots. Odin is angry.
Day 2… Still windy but more comfortable in jacket choice. Boats. Seagulls. Big puddles forming in the basin. Man, the voice in my brain is much, much simpler. A single voice similar to when I was thirteen. I’m neither a comedian, nor a historian, nor a philosopher nor a crypto trader. I’ve confused the voices of others for my own. I think about my yellow Walkman.
Day 3… skipped, went to acupuncture and credited that as my silent hour.
Day 4… first longer walk exceeding the 60-minute mark. I cannot read any of the chicken scratch notes I wrote afterward but I distinctly remember how the clouds hung so low on the horizon above the water that the thin sliver of sky appeared as though there were land there— Portugal, I suppose, rather than the vast stretch of the Atlantic Sea.
Day 5…if you crane your neck this time of year you’ll find where the bird sounds come from. The trees are bare, but the birds are loud as though it were already summer. To my untrained eye, all birds appear as fat black ones—crows, though I’m not sure there’s a crow population here. How is it that birds are so loud when perched, but utterly silent while in flight? Even just a few feet from my head, I cannot hear them in the air. Focusing on the birds and surrounding sounds—the jackhammer, errant school bus, the creaking wooden swing that makes me think of the hull of a Viking ship— I feel a moment of zeal.
Viking Resources
The Viking stories are like magic potions for those of us healing. Here are some resources to help you dive deeper into the history.
Netflix Vikings, considered by some as one of the best shows ever made, makes the history accessible. I like to compare it to the Peaky Blinders of the Middle Ages. I fast forward the bloody parts, and my toddler joins. She creeps into my bed at night and goes, “Bikings please…two minutes,” and holds up two little fingers. Impossible to refuse.
Given there are a lot of unbelievable sequences, Chat GPT and other sources help me discern what is patently Hollywood. For example, getting crucified, in the 800’s, in England, by the Christians, is suspect (those stopped around 300 A.D.) as is too soon historically for the portrayal of a well-organized Calvary, but human sacrifices and other bloody customs by the Vikings were possible and indeed recorded by travelers.
Dan Carlin’s Hard-Core History Twighlight of the Aesir is about 10 hours of Viking and early Middle Age history. Lots of military intel.
Tom Holland’s The Forge of Christendom is an in-depth historical account of Europe's resurgence post-Roman Empire collapse. First, they expected the world to end and Christ to return. But when that didn’t happen, they embarked on the monumental endeavor of earthly Jerusalem construction, to bring the Divine closer, and in the process, subsumed the Viking culture.
Ibn Fadla-n and the Land of Darkness is the account of an Arab’s 922 AD expedition along the upper Volga River, offering glimpses into Viking customs, attire, dining, religion, and even sexual practices, including the sole eyewitness account of a Viking ship cremation wherein we read about human sacrifice.
Warrior Meditations
Warrior meditations are a strange thing for me at the moment. On the one hand, I don’t want to tune in to my masculine side. When I meditate, I prefer just to relax my nervous system. But I also need more courage. To replenish self-discipline. Had this whole thing stopped a year ago—I feel as though I would have been at the top of my self-discipline mountain. Time can age your goals, erase benchmarks, especially when hardships don’t end in a reasonable fashion.
These meditations are perfect for that. They can focus on harnessing anger, courage, and self-discipline. There are so many Warrior Meditations on Insight Timer to choose from. At one point, I closed my eyes and meditated on chopping wood—the Viking way. I did however turn off a session wherein the teacher said the fears he sought to overcome were dancing and approaching girls in bars. Bah. C’mon Dude!
May Fenrir's jaws devour your fortune!
Healing Item
This week’s healing item is Kyoord olive oil. A Greek thing, not Viking, apologies! Founded by Dr. Limor Goren, a cancer researcher and molecular biologist, her research centers around high-phenolic olive oil (also referred as Medicinal Grade olive oil). A friend who recovered from a bunch of autoimmune issues and Chronic Fatigue said it was hugely helpful for her. Don’t heat!
Runner up: check out Oceans by Hillside United. If you are suffering, fast forward to 3:40 for an instant healing moment.
So, with that friends I bid you a fine week.
Memento Mori.
With Much Love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca
A curious fact about William the conqueror. He brought French to England (Funny, it took less than 100 years for Vikings in Normandy to switch to French - that is what superior culture does to barbarian conquerers. Compare with Lombardians in Italy, or visigoths in Spain, or mongols in China - barbarian conquerers dissolved in superior culture and within a few generations adopted the culture and the language of the conquered). But returning to William - the subsequent English kings spoke French for 300 hundred years (!) until Henry IV, the first king for whom English was his first language.