Belysning

S2E203 – The Seal’s Wisdom

Seals slip between sea and shore, laughing at edges. Their wisdom is play as medicine—a cure for grim perfectionism and the tight jaw of overwork. If your days feel like clenched teeth, come learn the seal’s grin.

First, declare a play tide: fifteen minutes when work rules do not apply. Set a bell. Do something absorbingly pointless—stack stones, doodle spirals, toss a ball. Play is not a reward for finishing; it is a tool for continuing.

Second, soften the jaw. Place two fingers just below the ears and massage slow circles while breathing 5‑5 for one minute. Say, “Loose as water.” The seal knows: relaxed jaws catch more fish.

Third, choose one task to “seal‑slide”: make the start fun and slippery. Put on music, roll a die to decide your starting line, or race the kettle. Momentum is kinder than discipline alone.

Fourth, adopt a comic ritual for errors—snort like a seal or slap the water (a cushion), then reset. Humor metabolizes shame faster than scolding.

Fifth, end the day with a shoreline walk—real or imagined—naming what you will leave on the sand until morning. The tide will tend it while you rest.

Let joy make you efficient. The seal’s wisdom is not childish; it is ancient agility: serious about life, unserious about stiffness. Laugh, slide, and keep returning to the work with salt on your lips.

Today’s show sponsored by EBookers Ireland.

Ready for your next getaway, Ireland? With eBookers Ireland, build your perfect trip—flights, hotels, and car hire—in one easy booking. From Dublin city breaks to sun escapes, find flexible deals and real savings, tailored to you. Book smart today at eBookers dot ie. eBookers Ireland—travel made simple. Learn more at akumedia.akulfhednar.com/sponsors.

Learn more: https://shorturl.at/cZr6d?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=Q4_aff_ebookers-ireland

—

Be well my friends,

Main Website – https://akumedia.akulfhednar.com

Shamans Website – https://akulfhednar.com

Newsletter Subscribe – https://akulfhednar.com/newsletter

Tags: ebookers-ireland, deals

#akulfhednar, #ulfhednar, #norse, #shaman, #alaska, #belysning, #oldways, #northwind, #declutter, #decisionfatigue, #watermedicine, #reset

There is a path that begins in the soles of your feet and runs backward through time. The ancestors’ trail is not nostalgia; it is a medicine against loneliness and drift. In an age of glowing rooms and scrolling faces, many feel untethered—no clan, no kitchen table, no shoulder to lean on. Tonight we walk the trail to remember we are not self‑invented.

First, choose one kitchen memory—smell of bread, a song, a phrase an elder said. Write it down. If no memory comes, borrow one from the land you stand on: the river’s patience, the mountain’s spine. An ancestor can be a person, a place, a craft well kept.

Second, make a small altar with three simple things: a bowl of water, a piece of bread or salt, and a photo or symbol. Speak aloud the names you know. For those unknown, say, “To the kindly ones who carried me here.” Pour a little water; break a little bread. Reciprocity opens the trail.

Third, practice the kin‑breath: inhale four, hold two, exhale four, hold two, as though you were walking and pausing to listen. On the exhale, whisper, “With me.” The body learns presence by rhythm.

Fourth, extend your line forward. Who receives your care tomorrow—child, neighbor, passerby, your own future self? Do one small act that the elders would recognize as good: mend, share, sing, sweep. Belonging is a verb.

When grief for what was broken rises, sit with it. Place your palm on your back where a hand might rest. Say, “I am arrived.” Loneliness loosens when contact is imagined and then enacted.

For nine days, return to the altar for one minute. Add a name as it comes. The trail brightens with each step. You do not walk alone; you are the latest bead on a long cord, shining because others held the thread.

Be well my friends,

Main Website – https://akulfhednar.org

Newsletter Subscribe – https://akulfhednar.org/newsletter

Consider a Session – https://akulfhednar.org/coaching

Tags:

#akulfhednar, #ulfhednar, #norse, #shaman, #alaska, #belysning, #oldways, #rune, #seasonalritual, #burnoutrecovery, #rhythm, #harvest

Blood carries one history; breath carries another. Many of us come from mixed lines, torn archives, or stories spoken in whispers. When the papers fail, the land and the virtues still speak. Your ancestors are those whose love and labor made your being possible—and also those whose ways you choose to continue with integrity.

Begin with the known names, however few. Light a candle and speak them aloud. If there are gaps, say, “For those I do not know, I honor you.” Place a bowl of water and a small piece of bread or fruit; these are common languages across many traditions. Offer a single sentence of gratitude for the gift of life that reached you through imperfect hands.

Now listen for lineage through qualities, not only surnames. Who taught courage in your line? Who carried the work quietly, mended what was torn, fed the children first? Write three virtues you wish to inherit—truth-telling, hospitality, steadfastness—and make them your chosen ancestry. When you practice a virtue on purpose, you join the river of those who lived it before you.

For mixed heritage, hold the strands without forcing them to blend. You are not required to flatten difference to belong. Learn enough of each line to be respectful: how they prayed, how they greeted the day, how they marked grief and joy. Ask living elders for stories, not proofs. A true story is a map; a proof is a fence.

Where harm exists in your line, do not carry it forward. Name it. Choose repair where repair is possible and boundary where it is not. Light another candle and say, “What began in pain ends in my hands.” Then act: apologize, donate, volunteer, or change a habit that repeats the wound. This is lineage work also.

At the end, take your bowl of water to the threshold. Pour a little outside with thanks to the old ones and a little inside with thanks to the living. Stand between and feel the currents meet within you. You are not a broken branch; you are a graft that can bear good fruit.

Be well my friends,

Main Website – https://akulfhednar.org

Newsletter Subscribe – https://akulfhednar.org/newsletter

Consider a Session – https://akulfhednar.org/coaching

Tags:

#akulfhednar, #ulfhednar, #norse, #shaman, #alaska, #belysning, #oldways, #rune, #seasonalritual, #burnoutrecovery, #rhythm, #harvest

Jera, the harvest rune, turns like two sickles chasing each other across the year. In autumn it teaches the weary heart what our hurried age forgets: growth ripens by seasons, not by panic. This episode gathers those who feel behind—burned out, scrolling through other people’s milestones, measuring worth by speed. Jera offers a steadier calendar.

Begin by naming your field. What are you cultivating—sobriety, trust, a skill, a home? Write it at the top of a page. Beneath it, draw the Jera rune: two hooked crescents revolving. Mark four quarters around it—sow, tend, reap, rest. Place your current life in its rightful quarter. If it is sowing time, stop demanding harvest. If it is resting time, stop calling yourself lazy. Rhythm is medicine.

Next, choose one sowing act (fifteen minutes), one tending act (maintenance you avoid), and one resting act (recovery that isn’t a screen). Stack them like a small braid each day for two weeks. Jera works by humble repetition. Burnout eases when effort is braided with rest.

Go outside and collect three autumn things: a leaf, a seed, a remnant stalk. Name them “what I’m releasing,” “what I’m planting,” and “what still sustains me.” Set them where you’ll see them. Let the room keep time with the land.

When envy rises—an old thief—touch the rune and say, “Their field is not my weather.” We do not harvest at the same hour or under the same sky. Jera is justice by seasons: each gets a turn.

Finally, close the day with the harvest breath: inhale for count of five, exhale for five, nine cycles, while listing what was sown, tended, reaped, and how you rested. You will notice: even quiet days offer grain if you look for it.

The autumn rune does not hurry you; it dignifies you. You are not late. You are ripening. Trust the wheel, and let the season teach you when to place your hands on the plow and when to set it down.

Be well my friends,

Main Website – https://akulfhednar.org

Newsletter Subscribe – https://akulfhednar.org/newsletter

Consider a Session – https://akulfhednar.org/coaching

Tags:

#akulfhednar, #ulfhednar, #norse, #shaman, #alaska, #belysning, #oldways, #rune, #seasonalritual, #burnoutrecovery, #rhythm, #harvest