From a very young age I've always felt connected to the elements that we are surrounded by. The warmth of the sun, the earth beneath our feet, the trees, rocks and the water of sea, lake and river. I grew up near a large canal and loved walking beneath the rows of high trees on both sides. Especially during golden hour where the sun would slowly sink lower in the sky and there was less boat traffic than during the day.
There was this huge playground that always felt a bit forgotten. Plants would grow wildly in all shapes and colors, there were only paths made by feet walking regularly and it always felt like I would wander into a different world whenever I went there. In later times, the town council build pavements and it's more tidied up, but whenever the evening fog lowers of the field, I'm being remembered that the magic of that place is still there.
When I moved to Norway, I needed a couple of years to find that magic again as I feel that these hidden magical places in Norway are not necessarily hidden, but around me at all times. Nature in the Netherlands is very contained, the magic is intimate. Secret mossy corners of a managed forest, a little brook at dawn or a single tree in the polder. The Netherlands has this micro-animism all around, quiet, tucked away beneath all that is build, planned and planted, and requiring either a sharp, deliberate eye to uncover or the childlike wonder of a child.
Norway, by contrast - and like Ireland! - doesn't hide it's magic. It hits you with a whole wall. It's monolithic magic. When nature is that massive - with towering mountains, deep fjords and weather that can shift the mood of a valley within mere seconds - those hidden subtle layers I used to look for got drowned out by the sheer scale of the landscape.
I feel that the genius loci - or the 'spirits of the place' - are more adapted to living alongside dense human civilization in the Netherlands. The magic feels more cooperative and varied and the land has in pretty much all its entirety a shared history with humans.
But Norwegian nature is very sovereign. It doesn't care that humans are here and the mountains, forests, fjords and lakes don't feel 'visited' - they feel permitted. It demands you to surrender completely of control, because nature here controls you. You cannot stumble upon a cozy hidden fairy glen here, but the entire mountainside screams trolls and giants.
When I understood at some point that this is animism too, the sheer awareness that everything is alive and an entity in its own way I began to see why I found Norway so vast and powerful, but couldn't connect to it in the same way that I did for years in the Netherlands. I also realised why I found myself so restless in the Netherlands all the time. There's a heaviness and beauty in being insignificant, yet so part of it. I experienced it on Lofoten, in Bergen, countless visits in Nord- and Østmarka, my wanderings here where I live and the view from many hill and mountain top. There are still so many places I haven't visited, so many contrasts I haven't felt just yet...
Yesterday, I took a moment to close my eyes and really listen to the sounds around me. Birds were singing, not just 2 or 3, no it must've been at least 20 or more singing their loudest most noticeable repetoire. The sun peeked through large fluffy clouds, heavy with rain, but not enough to fall down and as I opened my eyes and looked around I noticed the large stone in the picture below.
It has only been more recently that I've been feeling like the puzzlepieces are falling into place for me personally. Being on this path of mine has shown some twists and turns and for years it's been quite lonely. I was trying to navigate these new experiences in a new country where I would build my life - now soon 9 years ago -. And for most of my teens and young adult life I was looking for the magic and meaning in the spaces between human life, and humans themselves. In Norway I learned (and am still learning) to stand firm in a wilderness that demands my full presence.
When the scale of everything around you shifts so drastically it takes time to not only learn a foreign language of speech, but also a language that doesn't use whispers, but waves and woods and mountains. The silence of this landscape no longer feels like isolation - it feels like space. Space to breathe, space to create and finally, space to belong.
The Norwegian landscape required me to rebuild myself from the ground up. It has also made me appreciate my Dutch surroundings even more, because I can compare and still connect to both, although I will feel most at home here in the North.
For years my practice was shaped by the folklore and variety of Celtic traditions in addition to Norrøn influences. But here, especially the last 3 years of living where I live today, I found myself leaning more and more into elemental, flexible animism - that mirrors a lot of Shinto animism.
We do not need to hunt for the hidden, secret layers to find the sacred. The sacred is already fully occupied in the things themselves. The mountain doesn't symbolize a power - it is the power. The roaring wind isn't just a message, it is an entity of itself - breathing.
And by letting go my need to find something that would make me feel like I belonged to a group, a subculture, a band, a workflow, a project - this animism gave me the ultimate freedom.
To choose my own path, no matter the obstacles.
To choose the roads before me, no matter what others expected or wanted me to do.
Has it been easy? No. But has nature always provided the answers? Yes.
It is one of the foundational pillars of Siren Enchantments: this animistic lifestyle. It doesn't require elaborate rituals and people in positions of power telling you what to do how and when and why. Complete sovereignty and responsibility of life.
Seeing that rock beside and beneath the trees, being part of it all. Hearing those birds singing their loudest song. Rainclouds approaching, drifting over and the smell of spring flowers blossoming as sunrays hit each petal. How could I think that it was hard to find that magic, when it has been around at all times?
When we get back to what is, what we can see, hear and smell directly in our surroundings. Not our lives sucked into phones and companies trying to keep you stuck and in an echochamber lock. When we get back into the world around us and meet her again as if it is the very first time, we'll realize that the magic really isn't that far away
No matter how insignificant we are, we too are part of the animistic web. We are not separate observers looking in on nature, we ARE nature looking in on ourselves. Like a thread woven into the very same living, breathing fabric as the stone, the birds, the trees.
To look up and around is the ultimate act of return.
We are here, we are permitted and we belong. It gives me hope that someday we might finally understand.
With love,
Lene
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