I've been thinking about the Ginnungagap. It's sort of a violent contradiction. It's full of things that oppose and clash with one another, and that conflict is what yields its potential.
There's a sort of intentional message that conflict is the process through which we grow, that we are meant to scratch up against each other and that that is necessary in order to be polished and remade.
And then we get Dean Kirkland, saying to ceremonially toss your seidrstaff into the Ginnungagap to provide it a connection to the raw potentiality of the void in order to allow it to develop and grow. (Seidr Magic, 2024, pg 62-63)
And actually - that's such a good idea?? Providing a direct connection between your magical tools and the raw primordial forces from which magic came to be? Genius, actually.
Before you do that, you have to use galdr and sing a song spell (vardloka) to awaken the spirit in your staff. The Vikings appeared to have a strong sense of animism - anything can have a soul, but that soul might need to be sung to in order to awaken.
It sort of reminds me of a mother singing a lullaby to their child. All things can have spirits, but we have to ease them into awareness through thoughtful care and music.
Anyway - step one: wake up your staff spirit.
Step two: wrap the staff in black cloth.
Step three: wrap the cloth in red cord or yarn nine times (nine is a sacred number to the Norse).
Step four: tell the staff that you are casting it into the darkness if the Ginnungagap in order for it to develop and grow. Kirkland suggests this be done in alliterative verse that you've composed beforehand.
Step five: marinate somewhere dark, where light cannot get to it. The duration is up to you, but Kirkland suggests some iteration of nine. Nine days, nine weeks, nine months, you get the idea.
Step six: remove from darkness and carefully unwrap. Kirkland says to welcome it like you would welcome a new baby into the world, and suggests it be done in alliterative verse.
Step seven: give your new staff spirit a name reflective of it's purpose
Step eight: (optional) "blood" the staff if that's something you're comfortable with.
So - those are the steps, but it's possible to do with anything. You can yeet runes into the Ginnungagap. You can put altar items into it. You can put whatever you want in there. It's free real estate, and it increases the potency of the magical item to have touched the forces from which magic came.
