Reykjavík Grapevine - aug. 2023, Side 14

The Reykjavík Grapevine 11 / 23 14Feature
sister on her path,” Linda explains.
“She has her own reality and her own
choice of words. She is a promoter
of new ways, and when she asked to
do this particular event, an ecstatic
dance, I said beautiful. I’m away in
the east. I’m journeying somewhere.
So I don’t actually even see the event
when it comes out.”
The event came to Ísvöld’s attention
through an acquaintance and that’s
when they broke their silence on
Sólsetrið. “That’s where she opens
the space for tantra erotic healing,
and so it’s bring your children with
you, and then emojis to indicate that
they would have mushrooms,” Ísvöld
recounts the description. “And that’s
when I went off. Don’t fuck with the
kids.”
“What a very huge alarm bell that
should have been to anyone that
would have read that reality into
that particular post,” says Linda.
“However, it was none of that. And
what happened was a dance. It was
for families, so of course, children
were allowed.” Linda says that there
was no use of psilocybin during the
event and no sexual activities were
involved.
After the event was reported to the
authorities and Ísvöld spoke out
publicly, Teja’s now deleted blog
Devoted Sounds was uncovered,
which included her writings seeming
to support sexual relations between
adults and children, namely those
of Michael Jackson. The shit hit the
proverbial fan, and Linda shut down
all activities at Sólsetrið for about
eight months to re-evaluate.
Shortly thereafter, a nithing pole
(niðstöngur) — an ancient form of
curse consisting of a long wooden
pole with a recently removed horse’s
head on top — was erected on Sólse-
trið’s property.
“Perhaps it was a blessing, perhaps
something in the field needed to see
a particular wounding that wanted to
be witnessed,” says Linda. “Maybe
in that very dramatic gesture that
had me in tears and floods for some
time, perhaps now I can see that
as a show-and-tell of the very crisis
going on within a part of my land and
my community, for I am sure they
may have been my sisters. The most
common story is that a witch whis-
pers upon another witch a spell.”
Ísvöld was accused of being behind
niðstöngur, which they have strongly
denied. “It was done in such a won-
derful way,” says Ísvöld sarcastically.
“I felt like I was in like an old saga.
They said, ‘It couldn’t have been
anybody else but the völva and her
gang.’ No one has claimed it. I don’t
think it matters who did it. It was the
meanest níðstöngur since Egils saga
and it made its point very clear.”
OUT OF THE HOLE, REMAIN-
ING IN A HAZE
As I crawl out of the hole I fell down to
research this story and back into the
volcanic gas cloud, nothing seems
clear to me at all anymore. Hours of
conversation with varying degrees of
coherence, dozens of tabs of arcane,
questionable cultish research mate-
rial, and mapping it all out to connect
the dots, I feel more confused and
cynical than when I first began.
Nearly everything in this world of new
age spirituality seems like a grift, and
the frustration of traditional folkloric
practitioners seems inevitable. Bad
faith actors will continue to bring
their medicine shows to Iceland,
charging the spiritually vulnerable
for promises of healing, and the local
witches will clean up their spiritual
mess, like the chambermaids of the
hidden folk.
ELDBORG HALL • HARPA
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
BOTNLEÐJA
FRIDAY • JULY 28
TICKETS AT TIX.IS AND HARPA BOX OFFICE
MAMMÚT
SATURDAY • JULY 29