Book Review: Elen of the Ways

The Antlered Goddess: a review of Elen of the Ways

 

Elen of the Ways by Elen Sentier is a valuable addition to my shamanic library. Sentier is an awenydd, that is a spirit keeper and tale weaver in British native shamanism.  What's that? You didn't know the native shamanic tradition still existed in the UK? That's why you need to read this book. It is the one I have been seeking for years.

Elen of the Ways, for whom the author is named no doubt, is the reindeer goddess of the northern forests that circle the world. She is the Antlered Goddess, a reindeer or caribou, predominant at a time when people belonged to the Land, practiced gift economics and worked cooperatively. Her forests have diminished but in the north they still exist. The hunter gatherer societies are fewer and fewer but they still exist.



Critics will say Sentier paints an unrealistic vision of what life in a pre-agricultural society was like. Her women and men shared tasks; both hunted; they worked fewer hours a week; they had fewer diseases.  Certainly what she describes belies the images we have been taught, but she has some facts at hand. In Numibia women track for the men hunting big game. In the Phillipine back country the Aeta women and men hunt the same animals. Could the modern view of our ancestors be skewed by our own egotistic belief we have created a good thing with our farming and technology? About our technical age Sentier says "We have lost our way...we no longer follow the deer trods." (page 9). 

photo by Russel Wills 2009
Georgraph.org.uk

I suspect she is correct. I loved how Sentier brings us around the world in this book with stories, legends and artifacts about the Sacred Deer Goddess. Artemis and the Ceryneain Hind, the flying deer stones in Mongolia, the wild hunt across Europe, the fairy sidhe and their cattle who were deer, sacred apples of the sacred isle which cause alters to grow have a magic link. Sentier weaves these pieces of memory together as a proper awenydd so we can see how the Antlered Goddess connects us all.

In addition to telling the stories, Sentier travels to places in Scotland as she folllows the deer paths. These are wild places the deer know. Sentier chides us: "We are often afraid of the ways of Earth." (page 40) She is not. She shapeshifts and becomes the deer. She is unafraid of death. She embraces the wilderness. She dares the caves as initiation and rebirth.

I resonate with Sentier. I am a deerkin. There is synchronicity in my experience that pulls me into the book. I have heard a doe choose herself for the hunter. I have sung a protection song against trespassers and coyotes for deer who choose to live. I have seen a new born fawn cared for by his aunt as the mother doe births his twin. I have watched male elks perform for their mates and heard them bugle at night. My own mate has spoken to them.  They are our kin. This book is from the heart, from the soul. It will lead you deeper if you have wisdom to know how to find the deer tracks and how to long for them.