Reindeer Lessons
My connection with reindeer started because I thought they were cute. I found the look appealing. I liked the gender complication of a deer species where both sexes had antlers. Like many furries, I decided to be a deer for winter.
I had a book on spiritwork. It’s by authors who I’ve since moved away from, for complicated and frustrating reasons. But the book made a difference. It had a chapter on connecting with animal spirits. One of them was reindeer. I had decided to try anything in the book that felt achievable. Connecting with reindeer felt achievable. I did what it suggested. I donated to reindeer charities. I got a pelt. I did lots of personal cleansing before working with the spirits.
I felt something. My pelt’s name is Duva. We dance in the winter, and connect to the land in that season. It’s never been as life-changing as other spirits I worked with, but not everything should be, for a practicing spiritworker. Getting the top of your head blown off by ritual every time is not a way to live. For years, this was part of my tradition. When it started to get cold, a little time with Duva. Some feeling of antlers and hooves. Wrapping it all up a week or two after Glowtide, and tucking Duva away again for the next 11 months or so.
This year was mostly the same. I had a really good first reindeer ritual of the year. I worked out some powerful new cleansing techniques. I had a deeper than usual experience of being reindeer, being in a herd. Herd is different from Pack. Sometimes, part of the herd is taken, but the herd still survives. I had to learn to be part of the herd, then I had to learn what it was like to be one of the ones taken. Then I found myself birthed back into the herd. I shared this with folks from the Pack. I think the connection is important, and valuable, and worth exploring.
From there, it continued as it usually does. Some antler time. Some hoof time. Some bleating. Duva’s been sitting at the base of my altar. Being with me when I do divination. I’m cautious about touching them. Cleanliness is important to reindeer, says the book by the authors I no longer trust. I feel guilty and strange if I nudge them, if they’re not wrapped up. I’ve been doing a lot of other good Glowtide stuff, and the winter has been not so harsh. Reindeer mattered, but not a lot.
Glowtide passed, and a thing I’d written weeks ago came back like a reminder. Write about reindeer lessons. The weather got cold, there was a hope for snow that then faded. All of these tugged me back to Reindeer in the time that I would be ordinarily packing Duva away.
One last ritual with them, I figured. “Any final words for me?” I asked. I went out, in the cold. Underdressed, but with Duva draped over my shoulders. We were… not warm, but not cold. I felt alive, in the winter, after fearing being outdoors for days.
The ritual wasn’t as deep as the one at the beginning, and yet the message were clear. Duva, pulling me along, deeper and deeper into a simple sense of a four-hooved walk in the cold. There was a lot that passed between us, and none of it was about what I’d learned before, about whether I had been doing cleansing right or if I’d somehow messed something up trying to connect with them in the past. What it was was hard to put into words, a conversation and experience that ranged far and wide across the tundra. My phone kept the words when I breathed them out of a reindeer mind:
It’s about endurance. It’s about the herd. It’s about being the only thing you can see that’s moving. It’s about finding the lichen under the snow. It’s about looking at what’s in front of you. It’s about one hoof after the other. It’s about movement even when the movement is slow.
Somewhere in there, I knew this would not be the end of my time with Reindeer for the season. I knew I would not be packing Duva away. The winter is still here, and winter is hard for me. Learning to endure, to focus, to move as a part, these are all important things for me. They’re among so many other important things that so many others can teach me, but they’re things I’m still learning.
Duva’s with me now, in my lap, as I write this. I’m not afraid of not enough cleansing. I’m not afraid of doing things wrong. I want to connect, and they want to connect. I want to learn, and they want to be with me. I’m part of the Herd, I’m part of the Pack, I’m part of the Grid, and I’m excited to be moving through all of it.