I have always felt that there is a mystical presence in the forest, as if you are not completely alone, even when there is no one else around. This presence is quite different from other guides, spirits and angels that I connect with during my meditations and work. It can be difficult to pinpoint and still very tangible and highly ‘felt’. There is a similar but slightly different presence when I’m by a lake or by the sea. It installs a feeling of respect as if I know that I’m in the domain of something or someone else where I as a human need to be vigilant and show respect.
In Swedish Folklore my blood ancestors named this presence and personified it as the Skogsrå (skog = forest, rå = guardian/keeper). The Skogsrå or Mistress of the Forest is depicted as a partially human looking female but with a hollowness in her back, like a hollow tree trunk, and usually with a tail. She can also be depicted as part tree, part woman.
She is benevolent if you show respect to her and the forest, which she is the guardian of. If you walk through a forest and ask the Skogsrå for protection by honouring her and the forest and maybe even give an offering, she can protect you from harm. If you do not show respect for the forest and even harm it, she can make you unsafe. After all, she is there to guard the forest and protect it from harm.
There are other guardian spirits, guarding other parts of the natural landscape, such as the Sjörå = Mistress of the Lake and Havsrå = Mistress of the Sea. They are also depicted as female energies. There are some male nature and farm spirits in Scandinavian Folklore. However for the forest, the lake and the sea I feel it’s appropriate to see them as feminine energies and as aspects of the great earth mother. They can also be seen as ‘elementals’ instead of spirits or as nature deities, which is something that many cultures have in their mythologies in different forms. Examples of other comparable nature spirits are Aranyani - goddess of the forests and forest animals in Hinduism, Aja - Yoruba orisha and patron of the forest, the animals within it and herbal healers, Nymphs - nature spirits in Greek mythology.
The Scandinavian female nature spirits used to be seen as somewhat sexually deviant and as creatures who lured men, and some women, with their seductive powers. This portrayal has lived on but when folklore beliefs were still alive in the larger society and the church, this could have real consequences. There are stories of people being punished by law for having sexual encounters with female or male nature spirits. Both men and women were accused of this around the 17th and 18th centuries in Sweden. I believe that the established church and society was afraid of what they could not control. Forces of nature are powerful and uncontrollable I cannot help but to make parallels to attempts to control female sexuality.
By reconnecting to these beautiful personifications of nature in our own ancestral cultures we can reconnect to the natural forces themselves and to our own nature and sacred sexuality and power.
Sculpture by Nymla
