It appears I am going to learn sei?, an oracular ritual that is rooted in Northern traditions. Already when I studied old english literature I was interested in this: traces of it can be found even in works that are christian on the surface. I had a long conversation with D. last night about how much of the earth based healing practices and rituals that are being performed today are self-invented, borrowed from other cultures, somehow without extensive resonance in this area of the world. I have found much meaning in the sweat lodge ritual, itself taken from specific native american cultures. However, one can assume that “the sweat” traveled east, together with mitochondrial dna from siberia and the art of archery. And now our “east” is where the lodge has traveled. I can see how much adaptation there has been already: the lodges that F. teaches, who had Lakota teachers himself, feel right at home among his birch trees. The animals I bring into the lodge are not those of the great plains, but the ones from up north: the thrush, the tern, the owl, the swan. Sei?, I feel, can be the carrier of a strong, European tradition of “cunning”. Even in this country, if you travel east, and north there will be stories about today’s wise women and cunning men. L. asked if I had a staff. I answered that I have and that it is a seer’s staff. For a while I have been thinking about cutting and carving a ritual seers staff: nice though my Comde canes are, they have no place at the high seat. So I started wondering how my staff would be. I also wrote to L. that seeing has a very deep resonance for me. In traditional accounts of sei?, it appears that a sei?kona is powerless if she is blindfolded. Over the last few days I have acquired a kind of auxiliary vision. Sei? can be both light and dark. May my cunning benefit all sentient beings.