Ghoulies, ghosties and the power of story, with Betsy Bergstrom

In this very special episode, teacher and elder Betsy Bergstrom shares with us her insight and wisdom around the power of stories, the layers of reality, and our ability to be in conversation with the world.

Betsy has been teaching spirit based traditions and healing for 35 years. And she has lately become one of the premier teachers of Seidr,  a Norse divination practice,  in the United States,  importing it from England and Denmark. She is considered by many to be the foremost workshop leader specializing in depossesion methods teaching in the world today.

She holds the rare ability to open portals between worlds, archetypes and dimensions for the explicit purpose of gathering knowledge, changing possibilities and attuning to a higher awareness. As a recognized seer and oracle, she brings inspiration and knowledge to her students through constellating mythic landscapes with important stories to tell. For the last decade her gifts have focused on the compassionate release of possessing spirits to create healing for the possessed, the possessor and the world itself.

As well as extensive training with both indigenous shamans and in classical shamanism, Betsy is a lineage holder and dharma protector in the Tibetan Shije tradition of Chöd in the lineage of Machik Lapdron and Padampa Sangye dedicated to sharing Dakini Wisdom.

You can find her website at https://www.spirit-wise.com/

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This podcast is hosted by Laure Porché: http://laureporche.com. You can follow me on Instagram @laureporche
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Laure: Today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome Betsy Bergstrom. Betsy has been teaching spirit based traditions and healing for 35 years. And she has lately become one of the premier teachers of Seidr, a Norse divination practice, in the United States, importing it from England and Denmark.

[00:00:19] She's a student and teacher of Nordic, Scottish, Finnish and Buddhist traditions, a lover of stories and threads and a match made in the higher realm for this podcast. And she's also incidentally, one of my teachers that I was really blessed to learn from. 

[00:00:34] Betsy: Hello. 

[00:00:35] Laure: Are you doing,

[00:00:38] Betsy: Well, how about you?

[00:00:41] Laure: It's really good to see you.

[00:00:43] Betsy: Same for you. You look beautiful as always. I have a lot of trust for you as an interviewer. So...

[00:00:49] Laure: Wow. 

[00:00:51] Betsy: No, I just mean, sometimes as a person and you can, this could be part of the recording. I mean, sometimes in being interviewed, especially as a person who does the different kinds of things that I do as a profession I'm never really quite sure where people are coming from and what their, you know, what their interests or even their agenda might be.

[00:01:13] And it just feels like increasingly there's a kind of a trend towards people not so much interested and open to the people that they're interviewing, but almost like trying to catch them out on something. I've had some of those experiences recently. It's made me a little hesitant. Yeah.

[00:01:31] Laure: Yeah. No, I'm not interested in...

[00:01:33] Betsy: I know that

[00:01:36] Laure: I'm interested in you taking it any place that you want and helping us travel.

[00:01:42] Betsy: For me, as, also as a person being interviewed, I'm interested in what you bring to it too. I mean, it's precisely because you are who you are that I would even be doing this. And because of your interest and how you see this interview weaving into the places that you're putting your energy and your attention and your love.

[00:02:02] Laure: So to start off this conversation here's the question I ask everybody. Which is, what is your favorite story? Any kind of story, and either how did it help you in your life? And /or what does it say about who you are?

[00:02:23] Betsy: I think my absolute favorite story is from a book called the Faraway Lurs, L U R S. And it's a book that it was probably in print when I was a child. So that's a number of years ago, a number of decades ago. And it's a story of a girl in what's probably now Denmark who was from a, probably a stone age kind of tradition with a deep connection to nature and the goddess, if I remember correctly.

[00:02:57] And it's the story of her as a young, you know, approaching young womanhood meeting a young man that she fell in love with, but who came from one of the tribes that was more of a bronze age tribe bringing in the solo God's Sun tradition. So it was very much a story of the collision of two cultures, of two deities.

[00:03:24] And that story, I think, opened me as a child to deep memories and desire also, which had been present with me for some time, for a deeper exploration of the goddess in her many forms. And there's a poignancy in the book because it's modeled on some archeological finds or inspired by some archeological finds where the girl herself becomes one of the bog bodies.

[00:03:55] So there were so many aspects to that story that affected me very deeply. But it also, as I said, touched on these threads of memory and also these threads of a connection to observing life and being in life in a way that wasn't necessarily happening in my family of origin, quite like that. So for me, it was a very inspiring story and caused me to want to look deeper and deeper.

[00:04:25] Laure: Yeah, it would link into archaic memories and, you could connect on many different dimensional levels: the level of the story and the level of those two cultures coming together, which I know is something that you have in yourself, right? You have many cultures that are coming together. And then having this connection to the prehistoric or very ancient times.

[00:04:51] Betsy: And without being then able to put words into it. The words that I would put around some of my observations or the things that struck me deeply about the story was that it, wasn't only a coming together and really in a collision kind of way between different belief systems but different symbology also.

[00:05:12] And one of the things that I remember very strongly about this girl is that she wore one of those little skirts that was basically made from strings, you know, dangling strings and the kinds of jewelry that she had that were treasures for her. But also what was symbolic in the gift of the young boy to the girl would be this, a golden disc of the sun.

[00:05:39] And what occurs to me now, when I look at symbols - particularly in some of my exploration of where some of the earliest symbols that come from the goddess, how they have evolved into different key symbols that we find in weavings, in knitting and in other pieces of jewelry, et cetera - is that, that collision that occurred maybe have been also a collision of a different kind of thinking with another different kind of thinking and maybe the best way that I could describe it would be that some of the older traditions coming out of the neolithic perhaps were much more about cyclical time, spirals of time, concentric rings of time, as opposed to linear time. And that place of tension there at the edge, I find very fascinating. 

[00:06:36] Laure: Like liminal space between...

[00:06:39] Betsy: Yes. And looking in different cultures at how at one point certain symbols may be dominant, some symbols that were from older traditions are obviously adopted by more linear thinking people and they become not just adopted but adapted in their own ways. And it also, I guess I have the feel that just as place can hold memory, I think symbols hold memory too.

[00:07:07] And so I find that very interesting as well: a symbol that evolved over here, but actually has its roots in something else. And what then is possible to call out of it, to awaken in it. So that, that concept of awakening right now is something that I'm also very deeply considering. What happens if we start waking up some of these old places, old symbols?

[00:07:34] Laure: I feel that where I live. I remember when I moved there. It's a bit of a heavy place in France like energetically it's really kind of on the heavier side. And there are lots of churches, like it's known for its churches. And I remember when I really traveled within that region to find my house I could feel the underlying because if there's lots of churches, we both know that it's probably that where lots of sacred Pagan places before churches. And I could really feel that underlying energy , and I can still feel it in the land quite a lot, that is more ancient than Christianity and all of that, it's very potent. It's part of the heaviness is that because it's really potent. And I could feel, I remember when I visited, I could feel like, oh, I wonder this feels like it's starting to come up from the underlayer.

[00:08:27] When I felt that, it made sense that I was drawn to live there. Because technically it's the fairy place. It's the fairy region. It's Melusine's dominion where I live. I mean, she's carved in the facade of town halls so it's quite present. And so when you speak of those symbols that have like different roots and that there are many layers, many dimensions in one symbol or in one place, I feel that multi-dimension kind of opening more and more... Or maybe it's just that I feel it more and more, it's been always there, you probably know that more than I do! But I'm more and more drawn towards working multidimensionally in general which is not necessarily the most comfortable thing to do, but I feel it's what's called for right now.

[00:09:15] Betsy: I really understand that. I mean, isn't Melusine one of your ancestral deities also. So I think that's fantastic that you're living in her domain, 

[00:09:26] Laure: Yeah. When I, when I realized that I was like, oh my God.

[00:09:31] Betsy: No mistakes here.

[00:09:32] Laure: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Betsy: But also for her to be there as such a deep resource for you. And also looking at her. I mean, how is she originated? And now she's on the facades of different halls. She's gone through her own iterations and a testimony to how much she's adored or revered or appreciated that people don't want to let go of her.

[00:09:59] Laure: So I want to bring it back to the concept of story of metaphor, of layers. Actually that's something I'd like to hear you talk about cause I think that's really interesting. As a spirit wise person, as a person who practices shamanic healing and all of that what's the place of story in your work? How do you perceive the different layers of shamanic stories that happen in sessions well that you tell to people.

[00:10:27] Betsy: I would say your comments just a few moments ago about the multidimensionality and that can be a comfortable place or an uncomfortable place sometimes to be. I find often that's where my clients are, that there's a collision of stories that are going on - I keep using the word collision, that's so interesting - but there, there may be an overlay.

[00:10:48] Let's put it that way. There can be an overlay of different patterns and different stories that are going on. And I find sometimes with my work that I'm looking at, with my clients, the power of story. For instance, I knew some people whose family story - so this is something that was adopted by everyone in the family as part of their story - was that we're poor, but we're good folk.

[00:11:15] And that meant a lot of things to them, meaning that they acknowledged their goodness, but also tying one story like that to another, " being good and poor" meant that if somebody started to move out of that expression of poverty, then there became a, a difficulty for them in where they good or not good.

[00:11:38] And so it, it brought up incredible anxiety for them. That's just a very glaring kind of aspect of it. I find sometimes that with people, you know, as in with a notion from constellations, is that sometimes the story themes that are going on for people are actually ancestral. And so as a animistic and shamanistically based person I love always connecting with the ancestors to find out what's happening with you and, you know, what are the themes that are up in the ancestral field?

[00:12:11] As well, I find that people often are very attached to an aspect of their story and one way to observe it, especially as a practitioner that myself can kind of feel and sense energy, I would say follow the energy. So follow the story that has the magnetism in it for a person. And that those magnetic stories can be something that draw good to people, or it can be that they draw experiences that continue to recur for them.

[00:12:42] And sometimes what it creates for a client is that it's creating a looping story for them. You know, the story has such a magnetic draw, one way to look at it is that they're pulled into that story and become kind of trapped there as a result. So the discharge of energy within certain stories becomes necessary in my work. Also I find that perhaps talking in stories, in parables, if you will, that those are the ways sometimes to reach people who are defended against change, even while they're seeking it. 

[00:13:20] Laure: Yeah, I relate.

[00:13:25] Betsy: And it's different for different people too. It's never about anything being wrong with them, but that's going on for them, that's just simply what's happening, you know, from my particular view. So trying to find a story that might start to loosen things up for them or give them another thing to think about. An observation from working in alternative healing would be, sometimes people need to change their diet, just simply the food that they're eating. But if we take away things that they have been eating then they become resistant or angry or irritated. But if we begin to add good things to their diet, add good stories to their diet if you will, then it allows them at some point to begin to drop away the things that don't serve them anymore, things that are not supportive to their life or their wellbeing. I think stories can be like that too, and have that effect. And I'm, I'm very fascinated by the power of bards and minstrels and people that would wander, you know, much like perhaps the Völva always in her songs, as she maybe would be traveling, the Völva being the seers and the prophet people and the changers of destiny from Norse and Germanic traditions.

[00:14:42] But that power of being able to shift emotional fields, to shift perspectives, and the power of story when we use it in a way to support wholeness, thriving, and also maybe even a sense of nobility, arising nobility. Those are places where I find story to be really helpful in my practice as well.

[00:15:10] Laure: Yeah, I really relate to that. I feel more and more drawn to work with resource. I really liked what you said about, you know, instead of trying to take away the things that don't work or fix the things that don't work to add things that work. I'm more and more drawn to that, you know?

[00:15:26] Cause I have a tendency, I think like everybody who works in the healing field at some point, to be like, oh, this pattern or this problematic, or we need to address this. And after a few years of walking in trauma fields I'm getting tired of it. And so now I'm like, okay, so what can we add to this person's experience?

[00:15:47] What tools can we add? What imagery can we add? What cosmology, resources and resourcing images and stories can we add that will help them kind of build up their strength and their spine. I think you're wonderful storyteller.

[00:16:02] I tell quite a number of your stories to people, to my clients and my groups. One of the very attractive things I think in your work and in the way that you lead groups is that you tell a lot of personal stories that are quite wonderful and colorful and kind of get us there with you, you know. I always say I'm not clairvoyant, I know that's not true, but it's not immediately perceivable.

[00:16:28] And so I know that when I came to your workshops and your circles your stories of magic, of having experienced magic, really helped me. Because even if it's just for that moment in that group with you, because I trust you and I feel something that is real, then it expands my own capacity for magic cause I'm hearing about your story. And I think that's also one of the gifts of stories is that suddenly you're in somebody else's experience, even if it's a character or if it's a helping spirit or whatever.

[00:17:01] But suddenly you expand your experience or your awareness because your brain- and that's something more science-based, which I'm not going to go into because it's not my specialty- but the brain has a hard time making a difference between imagination and reality.

[00:17:18] And then if you add within that, the mirror neurons you can very easily kind of slip into the experience of somebody else, and this way, expand your capacity, expand your awareness, expand your resources. I think that's really a very valuable use of stories.

[00:17:36] Betsy: I think in addition that the stories, as well as the tellers have stories, the people who have experienced particular things, those stories then hold also an energy field. And so when those stories are spoken about again, that field can open up to some extent and that's, that's very much the way many indigenous trainings are taught through stories and then note taking, or just sitting with somebody who's already acquired whatever the seeker or the student is hoping to achieve.

[00:18:06] And so it's a very different way of teaching. It's more of a transmission, I would say. So that's one of the things I think about with stories is that there's the story itself, the characters themselves and then it's also the field that opens up. And that's very much been my experience that I've sought out as a person, you know, on a very much a spiraling spiritual path, meaning that I looked in many different directions, didn't just stay in one place following through, but followed my interest into different countries, different climates, different spiritual stories, different creation stories, et cetera.

[00:18:46] And also traveling to places where miracles for instance, or things that we might consider to be miracles would be simply something that happens. You know, where there's a higher degree of openness to them, or it's accepted, it's just part of the field here. So going to a country like Brazil, where more than 80% of people there believe in spirits and spirit things. So it's fascinating to be there because there's so much more that's allowed as a result, similar in India or other places like that , Nepal in particular. One of the things that I found too was with story, I was thinking about this this morning as we were coming towards our time together is you know, as you mentioned earlier, I have like all of us or most of us, a very eclectic background of different cultures coming together, including what we might consider different races as well, and one of the things that was a surprise as I was exploring the story of my family, my genealogy and hereditary kinds of things was that the Swedish influence that has been in my family and is considered to be a good half of my ancestry actually was a, a different ethnic group from Finland who went to Sweden and lived there for 500 years, but basically keeping their whole language until they couldn't any longer but also their magic.

[00:20:13] So even though I'm Native American, I've always been kind of puzzled that my magic and my spiritual inclinations don't really seem necessarily completely sourced from that, or completely sourced wouldn't even be the right word, even largely sourced from it. But when I made connection with the Finnish side of myself, and the stories, and the mythologies and also, especially the relationship to the dead. Because what you know, and I know, but maybe not all of the listeners know is that a lot of my career has been spent talking to the dead. You know, just learning how to do it better and better. But that that whole aspect of myself definitely came down through my Finnish side, as well as... I look at myself and some of the experiences of my life and things that I've seen for my family and realize that that Finnish word "sisu", you know, those kind of indomitable, kind of get up and go and keep going no matter what, sort of sense of self, it's an inner strength and resilience and inner reliance in a certain kind of way, that being able to claim that, or have a name for that has been actually really fascinating.

[00:21:26] So, you know, for us to look at the stories that are part of the myths or the creation stories of some of our different ancestors really can add a powerful dimension into our lives. It has for me.

[00:21:41] Laure: Yeah, we carry story fields with us. That's how I feel. And I know that there are things that I carry with me, some of those things I don't really want to open the field of in certain places or areas.

[00:21:55] And actually I just gave this workshop and it happened like that. That whole thing of talking to the dead and being on the death plane, which I've been quite a lot, and I still am apparently. Um, so I try not to open that too much, or even the field of magic when I'm in a group, because it's not something that I necessarily want to hang out in too much.

[00:22:19] I don't have your experience with it. I don't have all the perceptions that would really allow me to see what's going on and to kind of be able to manage it. But it comes up. People start asking me questions without me mentioning it.

[00:22:31] They start asking me questions about stuff that I learned with you, that whole field of death and beings and all of that. And so I know it's in my field. The trick becomes, okay, how do I tell this story that they want to hear, there's something in the field that's want to come up, without completely opening the field of it?

[00:22:50] Keeping my hands on it so that it doesn't kind of take over the whole thing. Cause some stories when you start opening them up they can take over your intention. They can take over whatever's happening. And so how do I listen to what needs to happen? Which is "okay, this is coming up, so probably there are some things here that need to be done that I can do", which I will then do. And I'm keeping a tight leash on that story cause I don't want that field of the story to explode and kind of take over the room and the group. That's an art form, I think.

[00:23:24] Betsy: I think it is an art form. And I think also one of the ways that I've come to handle a situation like that, or approach a situation like that is to recognize, with experience... I mean, so let me back up and say one thing that two of my teachers in the past, incorporated teachers, meaning human teachers, have said was that in a group setting, the person with the most consciousness has the most power.

[00:23:54] So when I look at that statement or feel that statement, and also when I think of myself, within the realm of working with the dead who are still, who haven't left the earth plane, I have a lot of experience. I've seen a lot of different examples of that.

[00:24:09] And probably if I really opened the field, it would be overwhelming for everybody. So I'm always curious about asking then the questioners, "can you hone your question a little bit more?" and let them set the boundary. I have almost a dedicated sense of okay, I'm happy to speak about this, but what serves in this situation?

[00:24:32] That's always in the back of my mind is "too much information isn't going to serve". Too little on this kind of topic can allow people's stories from horror films or something, you know,be the one, you know, be the energies that become dominant.

[00:24:47] Well, we don't want to go there. So "what are you actually asking?" would be the question that I would bring back to the person who asked it. " Can you hone that question?" And I love the idea of honing questions. That's part of the work of a Völva or of Vela, Vala, in that kind of seership and wand carrier, staff carrier tradition because the answers are as good as the questions.

[00:25:13] If the questions are too general, the information is going to be too general and maybe not speak specifically to what people are really asking. And for the teacher or the holder of the group, of a gathering, it can definitely be what serves everybody here at this time, if it's coming up, because likely they have something in them that's feeling what you have.

[00:25:36] My grandmother on my mother's side was from a Scottish family that came from Scotland to Nova Scotia and then eventually to the West Coast of the United States. So she grew up speaking Gaelic And shared a little bit with us as kids. And I remember the prayers with which she would put us to bed at night.

[00:25:56] And I can think of these precise moments as times when my reality shifted within myself and like your students, something opened and unpacked in me that started a thirst for knowledge. When she would put us - I had siblings - when she would put us to bed at night when she was visiting, she would say this prayer that's very classic Scott's prayer or Scottish prayer: "From Ghoulies and ghosties, long legged Beasties and things that go bump in the night. May the good Lord preserve you." 

[00:26:28] Well, shocking kind of prayer. That's not the prayer you're used to, especially when she snapped the light out immediately after that, leaving us, or at least me in the bed thinking what, you know, kind of. But after we got used to that she added a second piece and this piece really had my attention because it would be: "From Ghoulies and ghosties, long leggedy Beasties and things that go bump in the night. May the good Lord preserve you." And then just before she'd shut the light off, she'd say: "And just because you can't see them, does it mean they can't see you". The light would go off and it would be: "Who?! Who are they?" That's what I wanted to know. Even though I was filled with a mild form of terror I think at the time, nevertheless it was a terror of excitement and anticipation and also of a remembrance of some sort like: "Right, I really want to remember this. I really want to start remembering who those people are." 

[00:27:27] So that I think is if you believe certain cosmologies and we truly do have soul guides and we, we truly do have some kind of game plan that we come into a life with, or some aspiration or goal that we're trying to unpack, then we might have key moments in our life when something occurs that really open things for us. And that set of unfolding prayers, I feel really opened things for me. And also then gave me language to be able to ask her, well, I want to know more about who those people are. And then I was introduced to the Andrew Lang fairytales, because my grandmother had the entire set of the blue and the red and the lavender and the pink fairy tale books.

[00:28:10] And this began my exploration of that world and my understanding of who some of those other citizens might be of the inter lapping worlds and the other worlds, which is a beautiful introduction, I think, to connect them in shamanistic or animistic way of looking at things which is: the world is in enspirited.

[00:28:33] The world is alive and we can have a conversation with any kind of living entity of any sort or any type of living being. And that is so exciting, because that is where many of the stories originate from is that interface between us as humans or our observations of watching other kinds of beings and their connections with each other. I would encourage listeners to think of what were key moments that occurred for you in your life that have helped you to become a more true version of yourself, a trued up version, if you will. Many of us follow a zigzag path, I certainly did. And you know, for those who follow a more linear path that's great.

[00:29:19] At often points they'll have a moment of questioning that occurs for them, but some people's path is just naturally zigzag, like the flight of an owl, maybe or a spiraling kind of traveling on a track and then going back and re-examining something. And then coming back and looking at another thing that they've explored, but going deeper with it each time. And that opportunity to allow ourselves to unfold, I think can be preceded by openness. And if we think of threads, you know, the threads that you mentioned as a question that might be asked of me, if I may be so bold...

[00:29:57] Laure: Oh, go ahead, please, take it away.

[00:30:02] Betsy: I would say, oh, well, I mean, the threads of destiny or the important threads of my tapestry, personally that I like to get in there and ping and pay attention to, I think the first one would be openness. Being in connection with myself enough and in alignment, heavens and earth, so to speak, to be able to be open to looking at the unknown, also at standing at the edge, you know, I'm sort of very interested in the edge of the known and the unknown.

[00:30:39] Within us, we can think of our edge may be consistent for different individuals, but it also may shift and change, and what was an edge for us maybe we we've explored so thoroughly that now we're looking for another edge or we find ourselves in another one. And those edges, I think are best explored when we're present.

[00:31:02] So that's the second thread. So openness and presence, you know, presence to be able to use my senses, to have my resources available. And it's even caused me in some way, this exploration of the edge and what occurs there to shift in some ways, my style of journeying of shamanistic journey or animistic journey and looking more to what happens if instead of going somewhere, I stay here and I open? I open to those worlds, I allow them to be here. Because if I think of the different structures of the other worlds, upper and lower and middle or this and that, whatever they might be I also kind of feel like they're all just in one place. And so I should theoretically be able to access them all from here.

[00:31:51] Laure: Shouldn't have to go anywhere! Why travel?

[00:31:54] Betsy: Exactly. Yeah. This last year has really taught that I can go anywhere from here. Yeah. The third thread that I'm really exploring is my heart thread.

[00:32:07] And what that means is something that continues to unpack for me. And my work has been very much around working with difficult things with compassion. And so that certainly has led me to look at things from a heart centered kind of way. So that thread of the heart is a powerful thread for me right now. I guess would say.

[00:32:33] Laure: I feel very, very moved by that. I'm a few years behind and I'm really trying to start spinning that thread more. I'm not weaving it yet, I'm just in the spinning stage. I'm like, okay, I need to make that thread something that I can rely on.

[00:32:51] Betsy: Maybe also just as a suggestion for you or for listeners, certainly this is my approach to it, is to, to sit in connection with the great spinners themselves, you know, the spinners of destiny. And sometimes just asking "If you were working on this thread, if you were me and you were working on this thread, what things would you bring into this thread?"

[00:33:15] And they can be the most amazing things they can be the flashing blue of a blue bird or a Bluejay. And just that goes into the thread and you don't even have to know what it means. It just brings what it brings. So it can be collaborative, I guess, is what I'm saying. We don't have to do all of this on our own.

[00:33:39] Laure: Yeah, I'm still learning that. I still feel that I have to do everything on my own. But I love that. You just reorganized me with that story, I'm like, Ooh, this story is taking me someplace that's really cool.

[00:33:51] It's one of your many gifts and I'm really grateful for it. But yeah, staying with the topics of thread, we've never really talked about tex... like we've talked a bit about textile and I came right over and we spun, and I think we have a similar perception of what it connects into. But I'd be curious to hear it from your mouth. Cause I know you, you have a textile practice and this is something that you do as well. And I wonder, with your work and with all the fields that you explore and the liminal spaces that you explore, how do you feel that textile connects into that? 

[00:34:26] Betsy: Thinking you know, just looking at my exploration of some of the, many of the priestesses, the graves of women who have been, because of the grave goods, et cetera, thought to be priestesses. So many of them have spindles or other tools of weaving, and many of the stories of the spinners, the ones who spin the threads that can be then woven into the tapestries...

[00:34:51] I think, well, let me back up and say in my life, one of the things that I found was that growing up in a turbulent kind of family situation that I took refuge in stories. And so even the simplest task that I did, I would be somebody else doing it, you know, someone from some story that I knew.

[00:35:12] And so, you know, I really feel that stories, or the opportunity to step into stories or be living in one moment in the same time in a story is something that I, I somehow incorporated, you know, from an early age. And so working with textiles is very much the same for me. Spinning for me becomes very much a trance producing kind of situation.

[00:35:38] And like many things like that, it gives me an opportunity to open to the voices that I sometimes hear from my allies or, what I would say is that at this point in my life, when I work with textiles, each opportunity to work with them, I might be dedicating whatever happens in that time to a connection with a particular deity. A spinning deity or someone like that. And then I might also dedicate in a sense, the merit of whatever is occurring between me and the interface with the threads that are coming together, the tools, et cetera to something that pulls my attention in some ways.

[00:36:18] So that idea of tuning in and having a dedication of merit. Where my interest in textiles right now largely is is in weaving, and weaving with an inkle loom and working with cards. And I'm working with patterns that came from the Oseberg ship burials. And so those are really beautiful to work with because if people don't know about it, that ship burial is thought to be one of the major, most beautiful grave burials with a ship in that have been intact.

[00:36:52] And it was two priestesses with many, many graves goods pertaining to likely their priestess duties in their life and their priestess path within their life. And so for me, when I work with these particular patterns, I, I find myself slipping into their field maybe. That is my experience of it in that way. So I don't know if that's exactly what you're asking for, but.

[00:37:20] Laure: That really resonate. Cause I was just telling people who were here that, any movement or gesture that's associated with textile, when you do it you slip into a huge field of people who have done it before you. So when you say, " when I'm weaving those patterns that were in those priestesses tombs", yeah, I believe that, I believe that you slip into their field.

[00:37:44] Cause it's the same thing as a ritual that is done the exact same thing, the exact same way so that you can tap into the energy of all the people who have done that ritual before you. For me, textile is the same : the minute that you start spinning that you start doing those movements, you're immediately connected into like all the people who did it before you in a more or less sacred way, depending on who they were and what their place in the world was. 

[00:38:11] Betsy: One of the things, I just had an opportunity to travel to Iceland and textile's a big part of their history there. And women were the ones who created the wealth in the family, largely through their spinning and their weaving which, you know, the selling of that became the source of the family money essentially.

[00:38:30] And that's so powerful to think of. Also one of the stories that I just heard from one of my teachers, current teachers who is teaching about plant, folk medicine and things like that, and whose family originates from Southern Italy is talking about a find, archeological find that occurred in the area of her village that dates back to, I believe the Neolithic, because there are a lot of sites there and Sicily. But the finds were grave goods of women and they were spindles that were wrapped with amber beads around the shaft of the spindle. And the purpose of that is amber is magnetic. And so whatever it might've meant for them and many of the people from that particular time were pretty much draped in Amber.

[00:39:20] But when you spin with amber like that, it actually draws the threads together. That amber action is supporting the fibers connecting with each other, and perhaps even speeding up the spinning for them. But there's gotta be more story to it than that.

[00:39:40] Laure: So maybe you, maybe you need to not travel. Maybe you need to open for that story to come in from that time.

[00:39:49] Betsy: I have ordered some long links of small amber beads. So I'm going to try it.

[00:39:55] Laure: I'm excited. All right. We're already coming to the end. And so I'm going to ask you the last question that I ask people and I'm actually really curious about your answer to this cause you have a different, I think, perception of soul than most people.

[00:40:15] When do you feel closer to your own soul? And when do you feel closer to other people's soul? If it's not the same thing.

[00:40:21] Betsy: Well, the fastest answer that comes to mind for me and clearest of when I feel closest to my own soul is when I'm on mountains that have glaciers for whatever reason. I feel the most like myself and the most in connection with something that feels divine to me and allows, as a reflection, me to feel that divinity also within myself. I think when I feel closest to other people's souls is when there's a moment of intimacy which is often proceeded by trust on some level occurring. And so when there are some barriers that go down, when we can meet heart to heart, I think that's tracking back to that heart thread presence and openness, all right there.

[00:41:18] It can be a moment of happiness for a person. It can be a moment of disclosure, a moment of vulnerability, a moment of "aha!" or a moment of them settling within themselves. I think then that what makes me feel close to them is that I feel as though maybe I've had a chance to witness and be in the field with somebody who's made a little movement in connection with their own soul.

[00:41:43] Laure: I relate to that very strongly. I feel that it's something that I seek, I think. And that's also why I do what I do. Those moments of "Ha! Now we're connected". Something is happening that is human. That is real. On a deeper level and on an openness, the masks are kind of falling. So I, yeah, I really feel that.

[00:42:05] Betsy: And my experience too, is that those sometimes are profoundly healing moments for both of us really. 

[00:42:14] Laure: Yeah.

[00:42:15] Betsy: And it's interestingly, without story. Sometimes we've had a chance to drop our stories and just meet in that moment. So...

[00:42:28] Laure: Absolutely both of us. I always tell people you know, I work as much as the people that I work with and I do this primarily for myself, because if I didn't, then that would be problematic. This is the right place to be in myself to be in that position of I don't even want to say helping people, but creating spaces for people to drop their masks and just be in themselves. That's really what I want to do.

[00:42:55] Betsy: For me, one of the things that I've enjoyed in stepping into the crone years is the increased freedom that's there. I mean, the crone itself is such a mask that

[00:43:10] Laure: Yeah.

[00:43:11] Betsy: allows for a lot of different thinking or activities or whatever behind it. And so it's a mask that seems to really match me in this kind of time.

[00:43:22] But I also want to, you know, speak to what you just shared in that so many traditions feel that when people have earned or acquired or been, you know, received a transmission of something that allows them to have a healing gift. It's something that needs to be shared because there's some kind of flow that's involved with it and if that flow is crimped off in some way it's not good for you, it's not good for me, it's not good for anyone who kind of shares that. And then the question, the evolving question, I think becomes " what does that look like at different times in that person's life?" And that's one of the things I'm exploring right now, where does you know, for awhile it was hands on bodies and it was working in a different way and, you know, et cetera.

[00:44:08] And it's like, oh, I'm curious about the next iteration of it. I long for the flow to continue and I also long for its evolution. 

[00:44:16] Laure: I can't wait to see it. Well while we're waiting for the flow, it's like the next iteration, we'll have you back to talk to us about, what's going on. Thank you so much for coming and being here with us and I hope that we'll hear you again very soon. 

[00:44:34] Betsy: Thank you. I'd be honored to return. I really enjoyed our conversation also and it's the beautiful thing about great friends: we can just pick up where we left off.

[00:44:46] Laure: Even continents apart.

[00:44:49] Betsy: Exactly.

[00:44:51] Laure: Thank you so much.

[00:44:53] Betsy: Thank you.