Winifred Hodge Rose
Here I outline an approach for using the cycles of the Moon to structure in-depth, self-directed work with your souls. I have published a calendar / workbook for 2024 which lays out everything I discuss here to help you structure your independent soul lore study, but if you prefer to set up such a calendar on your own, perhaps as an electronic or dictated file, this article discusses how to do that. Here is a link to the published Moon Calendar if you are interested:
I must emphasize that this is not a study program for soul lore beginners. The calendar will not be useful to you until you’ve studied the soul lore material in my books, Heathen Soul Lore Foundations (Book I) and Heathen Soul Lore: A Personal Approach, or else studied the same material found on my website, HeathenSoulLore.net. You will need this foundation in order to use this calendar effectively.
Assuming that you have indeed laid this foundation, the calendar offers a procedure that will take you more deeply into your soul lore practice. It is a calendar to help you organize and structure your self-directed experiential learning about each of your souls, based on the cycles of the moon. Following a nine-day cycle (one day per soul) or a 27-day cycle (three days per soul) without tying either of them to a moon-cycle is a perfectly good option, too. But I find it enhances my practice to coordinate the timing with the moon, under Mani’s auspices, though I will concede that it is quite a complicated approach. Here is an explanation of how it works.
Structuring the Calendar
This calendar for soul lore work is based on the synodic moon-cycle, and is anchored around the full moon and the new or dark of the moon. This cycle takes 29.5 days to complete. We are working with nine souls: Ferah, Ahma, Ghost, Hama, Aldr, Mod, Hugr, Sefa, Saiwalo. For each of the souls we’ll be allotting three days per month. 3 X 9 =27, so we have 2.5 ‘leftover’ days per lunar month, after using the 27 days (3 days per soul). The two full leftover days I call ‘pivot’ days.
Here is how I use these ‘leftover’ 2.5 days. I assign one pivot day to the Full Moon; the other goes to the Dark Moon day. There’s still half a day to account for (the cycle is 29.5 days). Because of how we broadly count days on the calendar (and don’t count hours and minutes), it works out that some months have 29 calendar days between full moon to full moon, while others have 30 calendar days. So some months will have an extra day.
I’ve arranged the order of the souls with respect to the full moon and dark moon in a way that seems logical to me. I’ve taken into account the waxing, waning, full and dark energies of the moon in my choices, and how they fit with my perception of the souls. You are free, of course, to arrange yours differently, if a different order makes more sense to you. Note that the Dark Moon day usually interrupts the three-day time of the Saiwalo soul that occurs near this moon-phase. I focus on my Dark Moon theme on the allotted day, and pick up again with the scheduled soul the day after.
I start counting from the day after the full moon; this day is counted as ‘day 1.’ Here is the order I’ve used in my calendar, but if you are making your own you can change it.
Days 1, 2, 3 after the Full Moon: Ahma soul.
Days 4, 5, 6: Ghost soul.
Days 7, 8, 9: Hugr soul.
Days 10, 11, 12: Aldr soul.
Days 13, 14, 15, 16: Saiwalo soul (3 days), and the New or Dark Moon (1 day), which varies as to which of these days it falls upon.
Days 17, 18, 19: Ferah soul.
Days 20, 21, 22: Hama soul.
Days 23, 24, 25: Mod soul
Days 26, 27, 28: Sefa soul.
Day 29 is either the full moon, or it is the ‘extra day’ when the full moon falls on the 30th day.
If this arrangement and order of the souls, according to moon-phase energies, does not match your experience of your own souls, then by all means change the order yourself so that it reflects your own truth.
Guidelines and Suggestions
So now we have our calendar all neatly arranged….now what? What should we do with these days we’ve arranged for our souls? Here is a list of suggestions, in no particular order. Don’t try to do all of them at once, or even necessarily in one year! There’s a lot here. Pick out just a few to work on, whichever ones draw your interest.
Perhaps the best way to start is to simply ask this question of each soul: “What do you want us to know now?” (I say “us” because all our souls need to pay attention to what each individual soul has to say.) Then use divination, spaecraft or seiðr, lucid dreaming, journaling, and other such methods to explore the answers of this soul.
With each soul you work with, notice what kinds of moods you are in, and what kinds of ideas come to you. These can tell you a lot about your souls; don’t fight against the moods or ideas, or criticize them, but use them to learn more about your souls. Once there is a more conscious connection between your everyday awareness and each soul, you can work with your souls to make adjustments in moods and pursue ideas in ways that you and your souls agree on.
There may be exercises in the soul lore Study Guides online, and in my Book II, that you haven’t done yet, or would benefit from doing for longer or with more repetition.
Read through my article / chapter “Finding the Time: A Guide for Daily Soul-Work” and choose some of those suggestions to follow.
Write about, or to, your souls in your Daybook. You can ‘write to them’ by writing down some question or concern that relates to the soul you’re working with, then spending some quiet, receptive time to sense answers or reactions from them. Then write down the results and think about what to do with this new knowledge.
When you wake up in the morning, immediately tune into the soul you’re working with and ask or sense how that soul wants to be involved in your life that day; then follow up with that as well as you can.
Spend some time in meditation with your soul. You can choose your own meditation topics, or search through my soul lore books or website articles for sentences or paragraphs about this soul that you’d like to spend more time exploring.
Make time in your day for an activity that your soul really enjoys. In my Book II and the Soul Lore Study Guides on my website, I talk about things the souls like, and also ask you to do exercises to discover more about this subject yourself.
Here are some other ideas for discovering what your soul likes. What kind of music does it like? You may find that different souls enjoy different kinds of music! How about books or movies? Different souls may relate best to different themes or styles of fiction and films. So many other things to explore for each of your souls: how do they each react to scents, flower essences, aromatherapy, herbs, spagyrics, homeopathy? How about your preferences and your relationship with food? Kinds of games? Not all the work with your souls needs to be deep and ‘heavy.’ Just getting to know them in fun, everyday ways is also very worthwhile, and helps them become more real and individual to your everyday awareness.
Assuming you have family members, close friends or colleagues whom you see on a daily basis, try to recognize the soul you are working with as it expresses itself through someone else you’re close to or frequently in contact with. This is a good way to expand your understanding of the souls, and of the people around you.
As you fall asleep at night, spend some time with your soul-of-the-day. Consider how that soul expressed itself in your life that day, how it did well, how it could have done better, how it feels or thinks about how you lived that day, whether it needs something from you / other souls that it’s not getting, or anything else that comes to your attention.
You can create a ‘special place’ for each soul, whether on your altar, your dresser, in your garden, anywhere in your house–like a little mini-altar, one for each soul. Spend ‘quality time’ at each soul’s altar during its turn for your attention.
How about exercising your artistic talents with your souls? Painting, poetry, music, songs, embroidery, carving, sculpture modeling, crochet, jewelry-making….let your souls express themselves through your art of any kind; it’s very enriching and fun! And fun to share with others, too–your children, family members, friends. They don’t need to know anything about Heathen souls if they’re not interested; you can just agree to share time “expressing yourselves” together.
Runes: If you’re into runes, you can choose one or more to represent each soul. You can also make bindrunes, like I’ve done for each soul in my Book II and my Soul Lore Study Guides. Rune meditations and rune-work are a great way to work with your souls–and you may well find that each soul can teach you more about the runes it resonates with, than you could ever learn through lessons or reading. I have found this to be profoundly true.
If you are a pre-menopausal woman, you may like to explore connections between your menstrual cycle and its effects on you, and the moon-cycle of soul lore work here. You may find it works well for you to rearrange the order of the souls in this calendar accordingly, if you do notice your own unique rhythms and connections this way.
Mirroring the Moon-Phases
Once you’re comfortable with some of the exercise and approaches I describe above, and are growing your knowledge of your souls, here are two further approaches you can take if you choose. In both cases, you’ll regard the three days that you spend on each soul per month as a little mirror or mini-cycle of the monthly moon phases, meditating on ‘waxing’ aspects of your soul on the first day; ‘shining full moon’ aspects of your soul on the second day; and ‘waning’ aspects of your soul on the third day (regardless of where you are in the actual moon phases).
One of the more practical rewards of this approach is helping to balance your sympathetic nervous system (‘fight / flight / challenge,’ the waxing phase) with your parasympathetic nervous system (‘rest / digest / heal,’ the waning phase). The balance between them is celebrated in the ‘shining full moon’ phase. The two ways to use this moon-phase mirroring approach focus on 1) soul-psychology, and 2) soul-spirituality.
1. A Psychological Focus
The psychological approach focuses on understanding and working with your souls in all matters of daily life.
Day 1 for each Soul: ‘Waxing’ Day. Think about all the ways your soul is growing, and the ways you want it to grow more: in strength, in wisdom, in clarity, in life-skills, in its ability to recognize its kindred soul in other people, in its aspirations and dreams of what more it wants to be and do. Choose one of the growth patterns you identify to encourage in your daily life.
Day 2: ‘Shining’ Day. This is a day of contemplation, a day to comprehend your soul in its wholeness, to appreciate and love it for what it is, to bask in its own unique, shining light and give thanks for it. Find a little quiet time today to celebrate this soul.
Day 3: ‘Waning’ Day. On this day, consider some of the restful and healing aspects of your soul, or the need for such things. Some of our souls can become overactive, pushy, taking over our life and our other souls’ needs, or they can become over-reactive and filled with nervous tension, causing stress in our lives. This often happens with Mod, Ghost, Hugr, Ferah, for example. Any soul where this applies may need some downtime, some ‘rest / digest / heal’ time as opposed to their ‘fight / flight / challenge’ activities that have gone overboard. Take this day to explore this insight and apply it in your life.
Some souls are naturally quieter, their work is more subtle and out of sight of our conscious mind. They have an affinity for ‘waning’ or quiet rest-digest-heal energies, which are as important as ‘waxing’ energies for keeping our lives in balance. Aldr, Ahma, Saiwalo-Dwimor are possible examples. When you are working with these souls, or any of your other souls that may have this characteristic, gently focus on becoming more aware of this work they do below the surface. See whether they are healthy and strong in their own ways, or whether they need any more conscious support and need to learn new ways of doing things.
Essentially, for each soul, look at the benefits it can gain from the ‘waning’ cycle of energy, and consider any change you might make in your life to support these benefits.
2. A Spiritual Focus
The spiritual approach focuses on the soul’s relationship with a Deity or other benevolent spiritual being. You may find it challenging to pursue this more intense spiritual focus day after day during the month, especially when you are starting off. If so, you can follow a mixed schedule: choose only one soul per month for this exercise—a different one each month or the same one if you are doing in-depth spiritual work with it. Then follow the psychological focus or some of the other suggestions, above, for the other days and souls of that month. You can work up slowly if you wish: begin with only one soul per month with this more demanding spiritual focus, then add two as you become used to it, gradually adding as many as feel right for you.
Day 1: ‘Waxing’ Day. During this first of your three-day cycle for each soul, focus on growing your soul’s connection with the chosen Deity or spirit. Read your favorite lore about the Deity or seek other sources of inspiration concerning them such as art, music, poetry, outdoor places that you feel are related to them. If you wish, create a temporary or permanent altar where you will do this work. Work with any runes that might be helpful for the purpose. Do anything else that you feel prepares your soul for the sought-after contact. Before going to sleep on this day, make a prayer, a bede or call to the Deity, saying that you request contact with them during the following day, asking them to prepare the ways of contact between you.
Day 2: ‘Shining’ Day. This is the day for contact between your soul and the Deity or spirit you are seeking. Make some time during the day—upon awakening and before sleep are good times—for your contemplation or meditation time with the Deity. If you have to, get up during the night or sleeping-time for this, if your household and work schedule offer no quiet, peaceful time during your waking day. If you do need to get up during your sleep-time, then you shouldn’t take this approach for the whole month or you’ll become short of sleep. Just do it for one or two souls during the month, and use a different approach for the other souls on the other days.
The challenge here is not only to perceive and interact with the Deity or spirit, but to do it from within the soul you are working with. How does that soul relate to the Deity? How does the Deity relate to that soul? As well as you can, enter into an awareness of the soul you are working with, based on your past experiences with the soul lore exercises and your own work, and then pursue awareness of the Deity from there. One resource you could explore for ideas on how to do this is my article “Earth, Water, Wind and Fire: Elemental Modes for Relating to the Deities.” (This article is on my website, and is included in my book “Wandering on Heathen Ways.”)
The ‘tone’ or type of contact is up to you and the Deity. It could be quiet, wordless contemplation from the depths of that soul. It could be a spaefaring, meeting up together in an otherworldly setting. It could be prayers and devotions. The Deity could present some kind of spiritual challenge or practical task that they want your soul to pursue. You could try ‘sending letters’ between your soul and the Deity: using your Daybook, write questions or other communication to the Deity, then pause attentively, then write whatever you sense is the Deity’s response. These may just be disjointed words, images, riddles or baffling communications. Remain open-minded about this and let the Deity speak as they wish. It’s better to have a messy communication that you’ll need to ponder and meditate over, than try to fill in any blanks you might assume are there, and mis-perceive the message.
Day 3: ‘Waning’ Day. This is the day you consolidate and plant the seeds from whatever your experience was with the Deity on the previous day. Write about it in your Daybook. Consider whatever follow-through might be needed. Express its meaningfulness for you: perhaps compose a beautiful new prayer, poem or song; create some work of art that expresses your experience, which you might add to your soul-altar if you decide to have one. If the Deity has set you a task or challenge, plan how you will approach it and begin your work.
The Soul-Spindle
The focus with this calendar work is getting to know each of your souls individually. It’s of equal importance to promote their interaction and their coherence as a ‘soular system.’ This soul-spindle exercise is intended to do that. I suggest you use it at least during the Full Moon and Moon-Dark days as you work through this calendar, and more often if you wish.
This exercise uses the image of a spindle shape and motion to envision bringing your souls together to form a consolidated whole. I suggest that during the Full Moon you begin the exercise with your Ahma soul, coming down from above, while during Moon-Dark you begin with your Saiwalo-Dwimor rising up from below. The text here begins with the Ahma soul. When it’s time to begin with Saiwalo-Dwimor, begin with Steps 3 and 4, shown below, instead of 1 and 2, then move on to 1 and 2.
Stand or sit, as is comfortable for you, and take a moment to still and center yourself.
1. Sense your Ahma soul as high above as feels right to you, and extending down to your Lich-Hama in Midgard through a shining thread.
2. As this thread descends toward you in Midgard, still above you, it expands out into a shape like the upside-down cup of a flower on a stem. This is the top portion of the spindle, connected to the Ahma-thread, that takes shape over your head like an umbrella and extends down to cover the top of your head. This is your Ghost soul.
3. After sitting with this briefly, move to the lower end, and sense your Saiwalo soul as far down as feels right to you. It extends up toward you in Midgard like a shining thread, and along that thread flows your Dwimor.
4. As the Saiwalo-Dwimor thread approaches your Lich-Hama in Midgard, it expands into a matching cup-shape facing upwards: the bottom part of the spindle, mirroring your Ghost coming from above. This cupped area is your Hugr soul, supporting you from below. It supports all your stances in Midgard, and interfaces between Midgard and other worlds.
5. Now you have the top and bottom parts of the soul-spindle, and need to fill in the center region. There are four souls especially focused on your Midgard life and the energies that are expressed in Midgard: your Ferah, Aldr, Hama, and Mod. Each of them takes a position around you horizontally, forming the middle part of the spindle and completing it. Here is how I usually arrange them, but if a different arrangement works better for you, then follow the preferences of your own souls. I place Ferah in front of me, Mod at the side of my dominant hand, Hama at my back, Aldr at the side of my receptive hand.
6. Now Hama, Mod, Aldr and Ferah have arranged themselves around you horizontally, and your spindle is complete. Next, envision or feel all your souls sending forth a shining thread into your center, creating a smaller spindle there that catches all the threads and winds them up together. Now you have a spindle within a spindle. This is Sefa, your sense of self in this life, and the core through which you relate to all your souls and everything outside yourself during life in Midgard.
7. You may like, at this point, to imagine that this outer spindle is spinning around you, creating an aura of sacred energy. Alternatively, envision or feel both the spindles gently expanding and contracting, like they are breathing or pulsating. These motions help consolidate the souls in their relationships to each other.
8. Spend some time sensing all these soul-beings and their strengths and connections. They may have much to communicate to your conscious mind, and to each other, as you all participate in this sacred space and time of mutual awareness. You may also wish to reach out to a God, Goddess, or other beneficial spirit-being from this position of soul-consolidation, and experience your relationship with them in a new and deeper way.
9. Consolidate and acknowledge all the gifts you’ve gained with this exercise and offer your thanks. Return to your everyday life with enhanced energy, clarity, focus, and inner stability.
Changing the Image
You are welcome to use some different image / sensation / experience, other than threads in a spindle-shape, if that works better for you. The purpose is to enhance your souls’ interactions and coordination with each other, so anything that helps you do that will work. You could envision / experience singers and a song, or orchestral music, or dancers in a dance, or swirls of colors, or some intricate geometric design. The elements of your visualization / experience should blend together at the edges, the places where your souls touch each other, but remain fairly distinct in their centers, to show how the souls are individuals but overlap to some extent with each other with regard to their functions and natures.
Don’t be surprised if your imagery mutates or transforms after you’ve been practicing the Soul Spindle for awhile. Mine seems to be doing that now: gradually changing from a spindle to some kind of rhythmic pattern of resonances that I find impossible to describe. But it’s quite fascinating to experience this gradual transmutation: something my souls are doing on their own, without any input from my everyday mind, which is puffing along behind trying to keep up with them!
I hope that this calendar—the published one, or one that you make yourself—provides you with a helpful structure and guidelines for in-depth Heathen soul lore work. In closing here, I’ll include the prose-poem I wrote to honor Mani, that is on the back cover of the published Moon Calendar:
Mani is the Steersman of the Moon-Ship,
guiding it on its intricate ways through the Heavens,
measuring out the dark nights and the bright,
the fortnights and the months.
He conceals and he illuminates.
He knows what is hidden in the darkness,
and he shines his light upon it when the time is right.
Mani allows the mystery to be seen,
then darkens it as it transforms and renews itself,
then brings it back into the light.
Again, and again, and again.
As we seek deeper knowledge of our own souls,
Mani the Measurer, Steersman of the Moon-Ship,
can guide our way through the shifting inner tides,
the fluctuations of light and dark,
that reveal and conceal the mysteries of our Being.