Reykjavík Grapevine - aug. 2023, Síða 13

13 Feature
LOOKING FOR LOVE
On their website, the Wild Love Fes-
tival calls itself a “celebration of your
natural sensuality, the beauty of con-
necting to your own primal being and
the depth of the ecstasy that is life
force.” Icons of psychedelic graph-
ics highlight the festival’s activities,
including yoga, breathwork, dance,
music, lectures, intimacy commu-
nication and tantric ceremonies.
Tickets to the event range from €320
to €710.
More than 20 facilitators are listed
as attending, many of whom are
credited with links to the Interna-
tional School of Temple Arts (ISTA).
ISTA is an organisation that offers
workshops and training in “sexual
shamanism.” Its founder, Baba Dez
Nichols, has been reported to have
abused people within this cadre and
has been disavowed by many mem-
bers.
Wild Love’s schedule is composed
of individual events with names like
“Sensual Contact Improvisation,”
“Flights to Ecstasy,” “Sexerbrate
Desire Temple” and, simply, “Orgas-
mic.” Many of the workshop descrip-
tions attached to the facilitators’ bios
are presented in flowery, bypassing
language that doesn’t give a clear
idea of what will happen. Others offer
yoni and lingam massages — neotan-
tra terms for manual sex acts — and
various sexual healing practices.
The word “boundaries” is repeatedly
peppered throughout, yet often in
opposition to activities that do not
seem to leave much room for stating
them, such as being blindfolded and
covered in coconut oil in a pit of bod-
ies in the “Liquid Love Temple.”
When I finally reached the main
organiser of Wild Love, Matilda
Gregersdotter, she suggested that I
speak with co-creator and Sólsetrið’s
founder Linda. I explained that I had
been reaching out to her and not re-
ceiving a reply. Then I got one. Linda
expressed her hesitation to speak
with me after what she called the
media “witch hunt” around Sólsetrið
last year. “Where does your heart sit
with these energies?” she asked.
Linda arrived to our meeting exuding
an effusive familiarity that makes me
wonder aloud whether we have actu-
ally met before, although I am certain
we never have. As we settle into a
quiet space to talk, Linda delivers a
disclaimer.
“So Wild Love: that’s a whole energy
that has not much to do with my sto-
ry,” says Linda. “If Matilda was here,
it would be purely Wild Love. She’s
coming from life coaching. She’s got
a very bright spectrum. I’ve got this
spectrum. I’m down in the roots of
the shamanic business.”
We quickly touched on the main
points of the festival. She calls Wild
Love a “container” and an offer for
human growth. She says that none
of the workshops involve penetrative
sex and it is a sober, drug-free envi-
ronment. The facilitators are vetted
through their personal network in
the sexual shamanic communities,
most of whom have met before and
each have their own form of spiritual
CV. They do not call it a tantra festi-
val as such, though so-called tantric
ceremonies and practices are listed
in the event description. None of the
workshops are mandatory and she
emphasises that the entire event
begins with boundary setting lec-
tures to establish guidelines around
consent.
I have become more interested in
Linda’s story at this point anyway.
Also known by the name Ýra, Lin-
da was born in Iceland and spent
much of her youth in the UK. She
defines herself as a storyteller and
gatekeeper, with “certification” (she
herself puts the term in air-quotes)
as an energy healer, light healer and
in shamanic breathwork. She pur-
chased Skrauthólar farm in Kjalarnes
10 years ago, where she founded
Sólsetrið.
“I have to reference this timeline
again and again, because to me,
timelines now are melting,” says
Linda of Sólsetrið’s inception. “We’ve
got so many timelines going on
Earth, this is in my reality. I see many
options. And I see that even Sólsetrið
has been running on a few timelines.”
Over the course of the decade, the
centre has become prominent for
hosting gatherings, ceremonies
and workshops across this new age
spectrum of patchworked spiritual
practices. Linda says her own lineage
is from Peru, which she learned from
the Four Winds Society.
“It’s something of a curious align-
ment being in Iceland but aligning to
South America, but seeing as we’ve
had all these lives, it’s actually not
that unfamiliar to me.” says Linda.
“I have been witness to and been
sitting with Peruvians for the last ten
years, so that’s also another nice
cross-seeding culture. I have past
lives in Peru, I have been married to a
husband who grew up in Peru, but my
physical body this time on earth has
not been to Peru.”
I present the notion of cultural appro-
priation to her, and the validity of her
claim to a particular lineage that she
has no heritage from.
“I’m born to this land and this land
is the primary speaker, through my
bones, through my blood, through
my waters,” replies Linda. “I get this
as my cradle gift, is that the stones
here, the mountain here, it speaks
to me as its child. Freyja comes to
me, I am sure. Even though all these
things exist in the realm of the myth,
potentially, she is more aligned to me
because of that very genetic coding
that I have from this land. It is appro-
priate that I hold space for them, to
voice through me within me and be
part of my living container, so that if
I meet a dragon, he’s of this space,
he’s of this realm. So when the wis-
dom of Peru comes and knocks on
my door, I do not find it so curious
that the wisdom of their elders want
to come and talk to our mountains,
and they look up at Esja and go ‘The
elders of Peru have spoken of this.’
And for me, because I’m a curious
storyteller, I say, ‘Tell me your stories,
and I will see if it is not so far away
from the story that the völva or Freyja
speaks to me’.”
This convoluted response is some-
what of a signature move of plastic
shamans, who circumvent ques-
tions they’d rather not address with
indirect, inaccessible language. I
reframe the question, trying to un-
derstand how a White Nordic Euro-
pean who has never once set foot
on Peruvian soil claims to be of that
spiritual lineage. She launches into
an even more discombobulated tale
about visitors she met from Peru
feeling connected to Iceland.
Aside from meditation, drumming,
and ayahuasca ceremonies, Lin-
da’s specific spiritual practices and
training are difficult to deduce from
our two and a half hour conversa-
tion. Linda’s way of speaking is an
abstruse, mystical stream of con-
sciousness that is as fascinating as
it is hard to follow. How her lineage is
Peruvian remains a mystery.
REVISITING THE “WITCH
HUNT”
In 2022, Sólsetrið found itself the
subject of media controversy when
another event taking place there
called “The Lovers - A Dance” seem-
ingly advertised the exploration of
erotic connections along with psilo-
cybin mushrooms, while encouraging
parents to bring their children. This
set off alarm bells with many people
within the spiritual community and
the event was reported to the author-
ities. Among those who did so was
Ísvöld Ljósbera Sigríðarbur, known
as “the völva”, who previously had
ties to the centre but later distanced
themselves.
As a völva, Ísvöld says they practise
an Old Norse form of magic called
seiðr, which dates back to the late
Scandinavian Iron Age and is de-
scribed in the poetic Edda Völuspá.
“It is being a seer, being prophetess
and being in communication with the
spirit world and human world,” says
Ísvöld. “It’s not a title that I went for or
I sought to get, it is kind of taboo to
do so. It is more like a path that I feel
home in, and just something I grew
into. About 20 years ago, people
started to say that I am the völva, and
I’m old enough and mature enough
to say I am what I’m called. As long
as I am working in this way, a völva is
always a völva. You don’t clock out.”
“In 2016 I just wanted to meet new
friends and find a new community,”
Ísvöld says of their time spent with
Sólsetrið. “[Linda] was so open and
into just going anywhere into nature
to do ceremonies and I just really ap-
preciated that. She was growing her
spiritual community at Sólsetrið and
I didn’t want to be in the community,
but I said I would love to come do
some ceremonies there myself.”
They first signed up for a drum mak-
ing event at Sólsetrið that devolved
into something far beyond what they
signed up for. “It became a whole
‘shamanic’ workshop for a week-
end, not led by a shaman, involving
cuddling and eye gazing and talking
about the most dark sides of your-
self,” says Ísvöld. “No heads up about
it. Not a safe space. There were peo-
ple there that shouldn’t be there.”
They subsequently did a plant med-
icine ceremony at Sólsetrið which
they say was fine but people were
difficult to talk to or “get a hold of,”
and were later invited to do a winter
solstice ceremony, “which went ape-
shit,” they say. “After that I was like,
‘This place is fucking screwed’,” says
Ísvöld. “They’re just flying high, doing
whatever they want. They don’t con-
sider other people, other traditions.
And this land, under that mountain, is
holding space for their bullshit. After
that, it just started getting worse and
worse.”
The 2022 event that drew controver-
sy was organised by a woman known
as Teja Doro. Linda says she was
unaware of what Teja planned to say
about the event, only that she was
giving her a platform. “She’s a young
Feature What A Long Strange Trip
Down the rabbit hole of traditional and new age spirituality in Iceland