Episode 12. "Spiritual Fitness" (The Daily Practices of a Norse Forest Witch) with Imelda Almqvist
Imelda Almqvist is an international teacher of Sacred Art and Seiðr/Old Norse Traditions (the ancestral wisdom teachings of Northern Europe).
So far, she has written four non-fiction books and three picture books for children, including Natural Born Shamans: A Spiritual Toolkit for Life (Using Shamanism Creatively with Young People of All Ages) in 2016, Sacred Art: A Hollow Bone for Spirit (Where Art Meets Shamanism) in 2019, Medicine of the Imagination - Dwelling in Possibility (An Impassioned Plea for Fearless Imagination) in 2020, and North Sea Water In My Veins (The Pre-Christian Spirituality of the Low Countries) was published in June 2022.
Imelda is currently working on a handbook for rune magicians. The Green Bear is a series of magical picture books for children, aged 3 – 8 years, set in Scandinavia. Imelda has presented her work on both The Shift Network and Sounds True.
She appears in a TV program, titled Ice Age Shaman, made for the Smithsonian Museum, in the series Mystic Britain, talking about Mesolithic arctic deer shamanism. Imelda has a forest school in Sweden. Her online school is called Pregnant Hag Teachings.
In 2024, Imelda will teach a sacred art retreat in Greenland!
You can explore Imelda’s website at: https://www.shaman-healer-painter.co.uk/
And, be sure to CLICK HERE to claim Imelda’s free gift to you — A workshop about post-pandemic support for young people.
Highlights & topics covered in this episode:
7:25 – Why Imelda calls herself a Forest Witch
9:40 – What our young people are going through in the world, and Imelda’s beautiful ideas for how we can best support them
15:35 – How topics like shamanism and magic have become more “cool” and acceptable to talk about, for younger generations
16:15 – How do we “age gracefully and elder playfully”?
19:45 – How to work with the ego positively, and also model this for young people
20:55 – What do young people want to be when they grow up?
21:30 – Imelda tells us about her practice of “walking the skulls,” and why this is meaningful
24:20 – Why the Nordic runes are a key part of what Imelda does, and how she works with them
And so much more!
