Excerpt from Chapter Two of From Elder to Ancestor – Nature Kinship for All Seasons of Life

Repairing the Human-Nature Relationship

In modern spiritual culture Spirit Allies hold much of our focus. We make enormous asks of them, we credit them for great moments of our lives, and we craft generous ceremony to them. 

Something about Spirit Allies that many folx don’t realize in their spiritual practice is that spirit allies aren’t very concerned with the affairs of humans, meaning they don’t *do* in the human world. It’s not their job. Rather, they support us to be concerned with the affairs of humans.

In my book,  From Elder to Ancestor I write, “The thing is, most Spirit Helpers don’t know crap about earthly life. They don’t know what it’s like to human because most of them have never lived a human-person experience, or if they have, it was likely in a radically different time. That is what distinguishes them from Naturekin and Ancestors. Most Spirit Allies don’t have direct knowledge of life in form. They are very detached from the ordeal of humaning, by design. Their job is to hold the space of the playing field for us to create within. In other words, Spirit Allies tend the arena in which we keep the balls in the air, but they don’t directly control any of it; they just hold the space.”

Spirit Allies are powerful beings whom we need to do what we are called to do while in form. And because we give them such credit for the place they hold in our lives, we agree on their power. However, this division of duty also applies to our death rites. If spirit allies could deathwalk souls there would be no unquiet dead. They would get the job done, no hesitation, no question.

But we do have unquiet dead, which means it is a human job. It also means that we aren’t doing it, or at least not well enough.

Join me 3 November for In the Danger of Death, an experiential course and ritual session that I facilitate every Autumn to reconcile our unquiet dead. In this session learn psychopomp work, or deathwalking, in season with the natural elements of Autumn that facilitate us helping our unquiet dead to move on.

In this gathering you will learn:

• The difference between animism and soul tending
• What deathwalking is
• What The Broken Path is
• Why we don’t deathwalk
• Why we must deathwalk our dead
• Why the dead are unquiet
• A group ritual of deathwalking

Gain animistic insight into the runes, learn to elder well with ancient wisdom, and cultivate a strong spiritual path

by joining the Runes for Change community.

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S. Kelley Harrell, M. Div.

Kelley Harrell is an animist, author, deathwalker, and death doula held by Tuscarora, Woccon, and Sissipihaw land. For the last 30 years, through Soul Intent Arts she’s helped others ethically build thriving spiritual paths. Her work is Nature-based, and centers soul tending through the Elder Futhark runes, animism, ancestral tending, and deathwork. She hosts the podcast, What in the Wyrd, and also writes The Weekly Rune as a celebration of the Elder Futhark in season. Work with her in the Runes for Change community or in her intensive soul tending training, The Spirited Path.  Full bio.

#beyourcommunity ~ #youareecosystem

elder well, die well, ancestor well

@kelleysoularts