Lyfjaberg: My Healing Hill Journey.
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“To climb the Healing Mountain is a journey for the mind and spirit as much as the feet and body. Anything of true value comes at a true cost.” ~ Einar Selvik
Let me tell you of my spiritual journey to the awakening that changed my life, and fulfilled a big step in my spiritual journey, but first let me share a story from Norse myth. A story that leads to inner healing, spiritual enlightenment, and a personal discovery of an energy modality within the Norse culture.
There is a myth in the Poetic Edda of Norse lore called Fjölsvinnsmál, which describes this place that exists in the mythos as Healing Hill, or Lyfjaberg as it is called in old Norse.
The tale describes that on this hill resides a giantess named Menglo̜ð and nine other healing goddesses who all embody different aspects of healing in Norse culture — Hlif, Hlifthrasa, Thjothvara, Bjort, Bleik, Blith, Frith, Eir, and Aurboða — but the one who has lived through the ages is Eir, the goddess of healing who is also an emissary and handmaid of Frigg who is the wife of Odin and the primordial goddess of healing.
The tale in Fjölsvinnsmál goes on to explain that should someone make the journey to Healing Hill to drink and bathe in its waters and receive healing from the goddesses, they’d be healed of their ailments. The history attached to this is that in early Norse culture people would make offerings to Healing Hill and its deities in exchange for getting better when sick or going through hard times.
Considering this, there is a song by Wardruna, a Norwegian dark folk band, which I realized was a trance meditation when I studied the translated version. The song tells the story of going to Healing Hill in meditation.
It starts out by connecting to the spinning energy of wyrd — or Source energy in Norse lore — by closing the eyes and practicing galdr, which is a practice in Norse paganism of breathing and entering a trancelike state, much like developing qi or prana in other modalities. Then walking to Lyfjaberg in this personal journey, which at this point could be in the astral plane in context, given that the sources imply the hill could be in Asgard.
But I digress.
It is a journey through the subconscious. You start walking, then you stop, leave all your clothes behind — you won’t need them where you’re going. Keep walking, and at the second stop you pause and leave all time behind, and weighty thoughts — you won’t need them where you’re going. Keep going. At the third stop, you pause and leave all fears behind. Let fall all masks — where you are going they’ll be of no use.
But heavy is the trail ahead. Naked at the top the mountain that knows you, the song and meditation go on to describe the healing goddesses dancing around you and this experience healing you from any ailment.
This is where I made this wonderful connection and discovery that the story and the journey to Lyfjaberg is an allegory to the spiritual journey to awakening to the enlightened self. Before I get into what that has to do with my journey, let’s look at the story. It starts with sitting down, breathing and tapping into Spirit, you connect to Source.
This spinning ball of energy above you in the start of the story in meditation could reflect the initial connection of people’s spiritual awakening, which feels really powerful, but then often leads to their dark night of the soul and many trials to grow.
Then at the first stop, leave all clothes and possessions behind, you won’t need them where you’re going. In a very practical way, this relates to the art of letting go of attachments to shed and begin shadow work, which I’ve talked about before. That we must let go of and break old patterns to grow.
The second stop, leave all time and weighty thoughts behind. These themes connect to being. Be-ing. Here and now, letting go of intrusive thoughts, self-doubts, or any expectation of how long your healing journey should take.
At the third stop, you pause and leave all fears behind, dropping all masks. This is the ego death we must go through to grow out of our current state. This is realizing fear is normal, that it’s simply a survival response to learn what you need to shed doubt towards. This is letting go of all you were, thought you would be, or what was expected of you. It’s loving awareness of who you’re transforming into.
“When we take our masks off, we give others permission to do the same.” ~ Ram Dass
Although heavy is the road ahead, because in yoga we say No mud no lotus, which essentially means you need to go through the inner work to reach the divine self. Naked at the top, with feminine goddesses and divine healing energy around you, you can heal anything you wish.
This last part refers to the final achievement of the inner god power in spiritual awakening and enlightenment, feeling like your soul is exposed to the Universe, naked to the world, and this divine healing energy is the Divine Feminine connection that is crucial to spiritual growth.
This is one of the wonderful ways I love how myths can be allegories for our understanding of esoteric and even current practical wellness concepts today. Through the moral of this story and even the experience I had in meditation, I reached the peak of Healing Hill in my own way.
Over this past year, amongst a deep period of inner work, I went through every single one of these phases in my path to Norse healing shamanism. I shed the attachments, the fears, the learning to take my mask off, and most of all a deep gratitude for doing my shadow work that led to profound growth, and a deep connection to my higher self.
When I reached the end of my journey this past summer, which involved working on and studying all of the Norse Futhark runes, I had this big breakthrough where, with the act of galdr breathing and building energy in my body while doing reiki on myself. I felt this sudden flood of water-like energy, and I felt the feminine Frigg and Eir blast the reiki attunement from my body, replacing it with this watery healing energy.
Linguz, as this method is called, is similar to reiki, but different. Different in that it connects to the nine-chakra system of body graph human design as opposed to the eastern Hindu seven-chakra system. This system includes the two extra chakras — the second heart, and spleen.
The second heart is also referred to as the god chakra, which I believe to be so because it is the center of a person’s ancestral and soul identity. And the other extra chakra is the spleen, which in the perspective of this relates to intuition, survival, and self-growth.
What I learned after my connection to this is that my experience was in every way exactly like a full kundalini awakening, and that I had received this re-attunement to an energy that comes from my own culture, so that I could offer a big piece in understanding Norse spirituality and paganism today, in applying it to my practice instead of traditional Usui Reiki; and so that this energy-clearing technique I now work with and offer in my services flows to me from the same source as reiki, but through a different frequency. It flows from Lyfjaberg, and gives me the ability to guide my clients up the struggle of their own Healing Hill journey, to do their inner work and reach a state of wellness, be-ing, and wholeness, whether from my healing sessions or my life coaching.
This telling has been my journey as a Norseman, coach, and helper, to a place of oneness in this modern world. This article will serve as my prose for the book I intend to write on transformation, personal growth, spiritual awakening, and the journey to oneness from a Germanic Canadian’s perspective.
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Jordan Forget is a loving father, a healer, and a seeker of the Old Norse wisdom. He draws from his background in kinesiology and his reiki training to provide his clients with a path to healing and balance. He has dedicated himself to helping others through this holistic approach, and is committed to continuing on his own shamanic path. Through his practice, he aims to demystify the road to being healthy and whole, and strives to provide his clients with the tools and training to be the best possible version of themselves. You could buy his 8-week transformation workbook on Amazon, and contact him via Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or email.
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