Agent of Shield?
I don’t exactly consider myself a comic book geek, but when the Marvel Universe films first started rolling out, I was immediately drawn to the character of Phil Coulson. In a sea of superheroes, he was the guy with whom I could most readily identify: he was the “everyman” in the story, with his hero-worship of the Avengers, such as Captain America, and his often awe-filled respect of the latest Avengers-created gadgets (I’m looking at you, Tony Stark!). In a lot of ways, he was honestly “more Thor” than Marvel’s Thor. But he was also a high-ranking officer in (and eventually the leader of) S.H.I.E.L.D., a sort of “behind-the-scenes” anti-terrorist organization basically designed to help keep the universe safe: more or less, the “support system” of the Avengers. But why am I sitting here talking about the Marvel Universe and comic book fandom, when I should be bending your ear (and your eyes) with something way deeper than that, right? Because I feel like lately, I have a lot more in common with Phil Coulson than I already did, and I’ve been aching to go to “Tahiti”….
Shields are an allegory for protection. You find a lot of talk of shields in Norse Practice; a lot of references to standing in the “shield wall” to protect what we uphold and hold dear. You also find shields used as an allegory in the Christian faith, especially among Presbyterians, who sometimes use the symbols of the lamp and shield to represent the wisdom and refuge of God, based on a verse from 2 Samuel in the Old Testament of the Bible:
“For you are my lamp, O Lord, and the Lord illuminates my darkness…He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him”.
When I first stepped my feet upon this Norse Path and wrote my first book, Norse Witch: Reclaiming the Heidhrinn Heart, my intent was not to become the shield, but instead the dude holding it. In a lot of ways, I set out to become a shield-maker, who could help other people become equipped to build their own shields. I wanted to point a way toward the Light, however people might define that most authentically and personally, while at the same time providing “ammunition”, via education, that people might come to effectively shield themselves. Back in 2017, I wrote:
[This book] needs to happen because too many people from other Pagan Paths wholeheartedly believe that those who claim a Norse Reconstructionist-derived path are not witches, and have no claim to that title, which could not be further from the truth. In fact, were it not for the Norse and Germanic peoples, their languages, symbology, mythology, and traditions, the very word witch would not mean what it does to us today. The word witch actually stems, as many of you might know, from the much older Old English word wicca, which many of you reading this likely also associate with the modern Pagan Religion of the same name. Old English is also known as Anglo-Saxon: the language of the Germanic Tribes of what we would today consider mainland Europe; a people who, prior to their subsequent conversion to Christianity, worshipped the same group of Deities as modern Heathens or Norse Traditionalists. So, in fact, the first wiccans or witches were pagans of the Norse/Germanic variety. And that also needs to matter. That needs to matter deeply.
Why?
Because when all of those things cease to matter, we arrive in a world where opinion governs reality, and I refuse to live in that sort of world. Whether a Norse Witch or not, I hope you’ll refuse to live in that sort of world, too…
… I am tired of being told “you’re doing it wrong”, and I am tired of sitting back and keeping my silence while watching it happen over and over again to other good people. The Gods and Goddesses Call whom They will, and in whatever way They will, and then set those people to doing what They will, and no petty human should then get to say to those who have been thus Called “you’re doing it wrong”.
–Connla Freyjason, Norse Witch: Reclaiming the Heidhrinn Heart, pages 5-6
As I write this today, I can honestly say that I’m not only tired of being told I’m “doing it wrong”, and still watching that continue to happen over and over again to other good people, but I’m also just as tired today as I was back then of being persistently told “there is no such thing as a Norse Witch”. That has remained the same, if not escalated. What has changed, unfortunately, is that I am no longer as innocent as I was, back when I wrote that in 2017. The other thing that has changed is that I now realize I am not the shield-maker, or even the dude holding the shield:
I have become the shield. This wasn’t what I “signed up for”, but, at the same time, I am deeply humbled by the level of trust so many in this community have placed in me, and I am awed by the fact that this has become a community in the first place! I never would have cast myself in the role of “the guy that people readily rally behind”, and, I guess, if I had, then I would be decidedly the wrong man for this job.
Shields get broken and shields get bent; shields get shattered. And I have spent a lot of time, over the past couple of years, scattered in emotional pieces all over the floor. Often, when I express how broken I feel, I get told to just slough off the “words of idiots”, or to “laugh at them and walk on”. And the truth is, if it were left solely up to me, as an individual, that is precisely what I would do. But every moment and at every such exchange, I am profoundly aware that there are people out there depending on me to be their shield: to be their voice in a wilderness of clamoring negative voices. They look at me and see what I do, and if that can provide them with the courage in the future to do it for themselves, then I’ve gotta do what I’ve gotta do! And if that leaves me broken on the floor, then that’s a small price to pay, now, isn’t it?
Some people are going to read this and say that I’ve developed a “Messiah complex”. But those people haven’t talked to the people I talk to every day; they haven’t witnessed all the times that I’ve been told that what I am doing is an inspiration and heroic. They haven’t witnessed people actually picking up their own shields and using their own voices because of my example. I have zero desire to be any sort of “Messiah”, but if I can be a shield, that provides safety for others while enabling them to pick up their own shields, then that is an act of abject humility which I will continue to do, regardless of how much it hurts me, as an individual, at the end of the day.
Shields don’t get paid. Shields don’t get parades for being the hero. When you really think about it, for all the talk we do of shields in the Norse Practice community, or even in other Pagan or other communities, shields really have a thankless job. Anybody who is out there, thinking that being the shield is going to lead to a high ranking in the cult of personality is doing it for all the wrong reasons, and that is only going to lead to those moments when they become shattered hurting even more. If you genuinely want to be the hero, I highly recommend getting cast in the story of your life and the lives of other people as something besides the shield! If you’re “in this” to make money, whether as a “professional witch” or as something else, I also highly recommend getting cast as something besides the shield. Be the teacher or the craftsman; the mystic, diviner, or ritual specialist. But whatever you do, don’t be the shield.
Ullr is the God of Shields. We are told in Gesta Danorum that He could sail over the sea, using His shield as a ship. For the Mighty Ullr, the shield served as psychopomp: an engine of Otherworld locomotion. It was a tool for ecstatic experience, in the same manner as a drum for the Saami or for many other indigenous cultures across the world. The Vendel Period graves at Valsgarde inform us that the ritual specialists of that period employed the shield in the same manner as the Saami employed the drum: within the boat-graves there, shields are placed over where the interrant would’ve lain in exactly the same manner as drums were traditionally placed in noaidi (Saami shaman) burials. I find myself often these days trying to take comfort in this, and somehow make sense of how it fits into my position as shield. When I began this journey, I was fulltrui of Freyja alone. In February of 2018, She bestowed upon me the title of “Freyjasgodhi”. Six months later, my life literally went to hell (hockeysticks, not Helheim!) in a handbag. At that point, I wasn’t being the shield; I needed one. So I found myself reaching out to Ullr, as the “God of True Aim”. Shortly thereafter, I found myself “courted” by Ullr, and in February 2019, I became His fulltrui as well. From that point forward, my status as “shield” has repeatedly been brought to the forefront of my daily life. It has literally been “all downhill” from there, in the realm of my “shieldness”. That has to mean something, right? In some ways–no, scratch that, in almost every way–that tells me that Ullr Himself has “cast me” as shield, whether I like it or not! This isn’t about me and my ego; this is about Wyrd and Will.
The shield is an agent of ecstatic experience, in the same way as the drum. Just as Ullr is “God of the Shield”, He is also “God of the Drum” among the Saami, in His “other guise”, as the Alder Tree Man, Leabbalmai. As such, all those times when I, as shield, wind up “broken on the floor” are opportunities for “mini-shaman’s-death-experiences”. For those unfamiliar with the concept of the “shaman’s death” (Harner, Walsh, Eliade, Campbell), it is typically a sort of near-death experience (NDE) characterized by a deep, often spiritually-induced “sickness”, which enables the initiation of a shamanic practitioner, via the breaking down of the ego. Essentially, it is an “overwhelming psychological experience, that turns [the shaman] totally inward” (Campbell, 1991). All of that “wounded healer” stuff is all well and good and, indeed, very powerful stuff (I learned that at the feet of my greatest teacher on the topic of shamanism and my “hostess with the mostest”, Michelle Iacona), except thus far, I’ve been constantly faced with the abject reality that such things are fantastic, within the mystical realm of experience, but profoundly bad, within the realm of business. You see, since my first book came out in 2018, I have found myself not only cast in the roles of godhi (priest) and shield, but also as PR Director of a small independent press and as a would-be “professional witch”, and all those roles do not mesh well. Essentially, what happens when you mix “shaman’s death experiences” with a business model is that you find yourself feeling as though you are getting paid to be abused, or, otherwise (and worse!) driving away customers. You stop having the ecstatic experience, much less acting as an agent of it for others. It’s impossible to be the shield, and be the businessman because you wind up feeling, on the daily, that you are either hurting for cash, or hurting for nothing!
Which brings me back to Phil Coulson. In the end, in the off-shoot TV series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Phil Coulson learned the hard way that he could either be the business, getting paid to do the job of protecting people and treating that act as a job only, or he could literally be the shield, actually protecting people and being that voice in the wilderness (often to his own pain or detriment), and that he couldn’t have it both ways. It took literally dying and spending time in a virtual “Otherworld realm” (which was a vision of a beach in Tahiti, hence the code name of the project: T.A.H.I.T.I.) for Coulson to learn that. Later in the series, “Tahiti” became sort of an in-series thematic symbol for when Coulson was in over his head, or when “being the business” versus “being the shield” came to odds with each other. Hence: “I’ve been aching to go to ‘Tahiti'”, as I said at the beginning of this post. In short, I find myself identifying with Phil Coulson now, more than ever, and I can either sit here in tears and scream for a “Tahiti” that’s never going to come, or I can learn the lesson of “Tahiti”.
I choose to be the shield. Not because it’s glamorous, because it certainly isn’t, nor because I imagine I might gain some sort of fame from doing so, because no amount of fame, imagined or otherwise, is worth what a shield has to endure. No, I choose it because it is right. I was once asked by Christopher Penczak “what is your True Will?” And I sat across the table from him and spluttered nonsensically, because, honestly, I didn’t want to even face the definition of True Will in that moment, much less face what mine might actually be! The simplest definition of True Will–what is called Heilag-Vilja (Holy Will) in Heidhr Craft–can also be found in the works of Christopher Penczak:
“The will of your soul, not your personality….”
–Christopher Penczak, The Witch’s Coin: Prosperity and Money Magick
In other words, it is following and acting in alignment with one’s soul purpose, rather than one’s ego. The most basic praxis of Heidhr Craft is attaining personal Sovereignty, via breaking away the ego to discover the True Self–the authentic personal self–that we might come to “wield” Heilag-Vilja. All of that is far easier said and taught, than done! I’ll confess I had that across-the-table conversation with Christopher because I was officially broken, from trying to constantly be both the shield and the businessman (the “professional witch”). Both of those things weren’t my authentic True Self, much less in line with my True Will, and at that particular moment in time, I seriously didn’t want to embrace that fact! At that point in time, it was mentally and emotionally easier to essentially look like an idiot in front of one of my personal heroes than to define True Will, much less claim mine. So I just kept shattering; kept screaming for a “Tahiti” that would never come.
Being the shield is a vital part of my True Will; my Heilag-Vilja. From the very depths of my soul, I don’t just want, I need to protect what I and others hold dear; I need to be that voice in the wilderness for all those out there who might not yet be brave enough to raise their own. I need to be that force for change that stands between the innocent and the magickal and the dark forces of this world: all those ugly -isms which have been a blight on the face of Norse Practice for far too long. I also need to be the teacher, and, sometimes, the best way to teach is through prolonged action: one of the most effective teaching methods is to show someone how to do something (see: that old euphemism about giving a man a fish, versus teaching him to fish). I need to be the agent of ecstatic experience in a world where such things have largely been demoted to the realm of “UPG” and “mental sock puppets”. Those are the desires of my heart (hjarta; the “soul” in the above definition of Will), not solely of my mind (hugr; the “personality”). And I stand in a place where I can either see those moments when this shield winds up broken as the “mini-shaman’s-death-experiences” that they are, and embrace them as that, and use them as fuel for honest practice, or I can choose to remain enslaved to the mundane, as a businessman, and just wind up staying shattered.
Tahiti? Not anymore.
