Crossing & Listening

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This is where most people rush. Don’t.

Everyone wants to get to the power part. The showy part. But listen, Seiðr isn’t loud. It doesn’t shout to be heard. It waits for quiet.

This is the piece where we slow down. You’ve probably heard of útiseta. Maybe you’ve even done it out under the stars, asking the land to speak. Or maybe you’ve felt the way a silence deepens when you’re about to hear something old. That’s what this section is about. The seat. The stillness. The listening. The rites that look like nothing from the outside but feel like everything when you’re in them. This is where the real crossing happens not with fanfare, but with presence. With breath. With bone-deep attention.

So if you’ve been skimming, this is your cue to stop. Settle in. Because once you learn how to listen, the whole practice changes.

The Seat

What We Know
The term útiseta appears in several Old Norse sources, often translated as “sitting out.” It refers to the act of going out usually alone and sitting in silence, often overnight, to seek visions, speak to spirits, or receive signs from the dead. The Landnámabók mentions útiseta in a legal context, warning against it as a form of forbidden magic. This tells us two things: first, it was known well enough to be legislated; and second, it was feared. Some scholars believe útiseta was part of earlier Indo-European practices of necromancy or spirit invocation, likely performed in liminal spaces, mounds, crossroads, coastlines, or wild places away from the home. Útiseta also shows up in later folklore, sometimes twisted through a Christian lens, where it’s associated with grave-sitting, faery-seeing, or witchcraft. Still, the roots run deep.

Sources to explore:
Landnámabók (Book of Settlements)
Neil Price, The Viking Way
Snorri Sturluson’s accounts of outlawed magic
Scholarly discussion of nocturnal and necromantic rites

What We Think
If that wasn’t enough to catch your attention, this is where it gets wild.

Imagine sitting out, alone, all night. No fire. No food. No shelter. Just you, the dark, and whatever decides to speak.

Was it always that extreme? Maybe not. Maybe some just sat quietly at the edge of their land. But the pattern suggests something deeper. The völva didn’t just visit the unseen...she waited for it. She offered her presence. Her stillness.

And where did they sit? On grave mounds, likely. On rocks where the boundary thinned. Places where land met water. Where stories bled through. It wasn’t just about solitude, it was about placement. About offering yourself to the silence with no guarantee of an answer. Some say it was used to receive prophecy. Others think it was a way to connect to the dead. Maybe it was both. Maybe it depended on what was asked, or who was doing the asking. But this wasn’t performance. It wasn’t public. It was a listening ritual. A rite of presence. And that might be why it scared people. You’re never quite the same after a night like that.

What It Means to Me
When I sit out, I don’t bring expectation. I bring stillness.

There are places the land remembers places that echo louder than others. I find one. I sit. And I let the dark come. Sometimes nothing happens. And that’s fine. That’s part of it. But sometimes there’s a shift. A knowing. A brush of presence I can’t name. Útiseta reminds me I don’t need to force the thread.
I just need to make space for it to speak.

And when it does…
I listen.

What We Know
Silence was not an afterthought in the old world, it was sacred space.
While there are no direct eddas or sagas that describe silence as a formal tool of Seiðr, the absence of speech appears in key ritual moments. Consider the grave-mounds and high seats. The act of útiseta itself, sitting out on the land in stillness was defined by silence. The practitioner did not call. They listened.
In many Indo-European cultures, silence before an offering or omen was part of the ritual rhythm. It was not empty. It was expectant.
Archaeological references offer little on silence itself, but in the absence of bells, chimes, or horns, it is often what wasn’t present that mattered most.

What We Think
This is where it gets powerful.
Some say the strongest spell a völva can cast is the one she never speaks aloud.
Silence isn’t just the absence of words. It’s the container for the voice to rise from somewhere deeper.
You’ve probably felt it too. That moment before you speak in a sacred space, where your breath knows not to move too quickly. That isn’t just reverence, it’s a crossing.
Many believe the silence in Seiðr is what allowed the thread to tighten. Less noise. Less mind. Less you.
There are tales of völur who would veil their faces and say nothing for hours, or who would raise their staffs and close their eyes, not to chant, but to wait. Listening not for spirits, but for truth.
And maybe that’s what silence really is. The space where truth decides whether it wants to be heard.

What It Means To Me
Silence is not passive.
It presses. It stretches. It teaches.
When I close my mouth and open my senses, the land speaks. The ancestors speak. My own spirit, so used to performing, finally takes a seat. I have found more answers in silence than I ever have in noise.

When I walk the edge of trance, I let the stillness thicken. No songs. No chants. Just breath, heartbeat, and the ache of something waiting to be named. In that space, I do not lead.
I do not push.
I do not beg for signs.

I listen.

What We Know
Burial mounds called haugar in Old Norse, were not simply graves. They were sacred places, woven into both the spiritual and social fabric of Norse life. Many were built high on ridges or near the sea, not hidden, but meant to be seen. These were monuments to memory, legacy, and power.

The Old Norse texts offer clear evidence of the mound as a liminal site one where the veil between worlds thins. In Völuspá, Odin seeks wisdom by raising a völva from her burial mound. In Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, the slain Helgi returns from his barrow to spend a night with his beloved Sigrún. These aren’t metaphors. They point to a cultural truth: the dead weren’t gone. They were reachable.

Archaeological finds reinforce this. Excavations at Oseberg, Gokstad, and other mound sites in Norway and Sweden have uncovered ritual objects, ship burials, seiðstaves, textiles, and preserved food offerings—all pointing to ongoing reverence, not just a single moment of burial. Some mounds show signs of repeated visitation. Fires. Offerings. Even new layers of soil, added in what appears to be ritual acts long after the original interment.

In Saga of Hrolf Kraki, and again in Eyrbyggja Saga, we hear of mounds that speak, glow, or resist disturbance. These weren’t sealed places. They were thresholds. And in some cases, believed to be active.

Modern scholars such as Neil Price (The Viking Way) and archaeologist Else Roesdahl (The Vikings) have written extensively about the symbolic importance of the mound in Norse cosmology not just as a tomb, but as a portal. A place of power.

This was sacred ground. And it still is.

What We Think
So here’s where the story really stirs the bones.

There’s an old belief, some whisper it still, that when you sit atop a mound at night, especially at the turning of the seasons, you aren’t just sitting on the earth. You’re listening.

The wind might shift. A memory might rise. Some say you’ll hear voices. Others say the voice is your own, made ancient for a while.

Some of us wonder if the völva's seat, her high seat of trance and power, wasn’t always built. Maybe it was the earth itself. A mound, a grave, a threshold. Is it really so strange to think she’d call the dead from their resting place while sitting right above them? Or that a warrior would go to his father's barrow for counsel? That the thread between the living and the gone was not only remembered but used? And what if we brought that back? What if sitting on sacred ground wasn’t just a symbol, but a door?

What It Means to Me
I’ve sat on the mound.
Felt the stillness of it.
Listened to wind that didn’t feel like wind.

It’s not a show. It’s not a performance.
It’s quiet. Bone-deep.
And something in me always leaves changed.

I don’t go to demand answers.
I go to remember the question.
The earth has held more than we will ever know.
But sometimes, when we return with reverence,
It speaks.
And in that silence,
I find my place again.

What We Know
In the Eiríks saga rauða, the völva Þorbjörg is given a high seat raised and separate from the household around her. It's described as central to the ritual, part of the physical space prepared for her seiðr. This seat wasn’t casual. It was prepared with cushions of hen feathers, possibly as a gesture of comfort or sanctity, and Þorbjörg only mounted it once all ritual preparations were complete.

High seats, öndvegissúlur, are also mentioned throughout Norse literature. They were not only used in ritual but often symbolized authority, ancestry, and the connection to the gods or the honored dead. These seats were sometimes carved with protective symbols and were considered part of the spiritual architecture of a home. We also know that grave mounds were used in certain magical acts. Sitting atop a mound was a known method for communicating with the dead, and there are surviving mentions of sitting out at night to seek answers, especially in poetic and folkloric echoes.

Sources to explore:
Eiríks saga rauða
Öndvegissúlur references in saga literature
Neil Price, The Viking Way
Archaeological speculation on high-seat posts and mound rituals

What We Think
This is where it gets rich.

That seat wasn’t just a place to sit, it was a threshold. Raised off the ground, set apart, and placed at the center of the rite. A statement. A signal. It says: this is the one who listens between. Some say the hen feathers beneath Þorbjörg were more than comfort. They might have been ritual material, linked to dreams, trance, flight, or even the dead. Feathers show up in other burial goods. Maybe they softened the fall into trance. Or maybe they were offerings themselves. And think about the height. The separation. Why lift her above the room? Maybe it was about leaving the ordinary world behind. Maybe it made her more visible to the spirits, or less visible to the living. Either way, it marked her as between. And if you sit on a mound, or a stone, or a ridge, you can feel it even now. The old ones used place as a tool. The body becomes part of the rite. Where you place yourself matters.

What It Means to Me
I don’t sit to be seen. I sit to listen.

When I take the seat, whether it’s a mound, a stone, a platform, or the earth itself...I feel the weight of it. My back straightens. My breath slows. Something in me remembers where silence begins. I don’t always use a cushion. I don’t always raise myself up. But I always know when I’ve crossed over. The seat helps me know where I end and the thread begins. Sometimes it’s a stool. Sometimes it’s a hillside. Sometimes it’s my own bones. But when I sit with intent, I hear more than words.