On the evening of June 1, 2018, my groves senior druid, MJ, and myself gathered in my house to try doing an online oracular spae session. Before we began, we had many questions on if this would work. Would the people on the other side of the monitors get anything out of this? What would happen on our end? Would the seer actually see? Would the guide get the usual overflow the seer gets? Would the technology work? Would my cats interrupt us? We did it anyways, and to our surprise it worked.
First, the technology we used was Zoom. This is an Amazon product that offers all kinds of conferencing options, including video and chat. I've been using this software for a while now and it has worked wonderfully for both planned and unplanned live conferences. It worked so well, I have actually bought a paid account and has used it quite a lot. My only real complaint of that software is that it can be a resource hog, especially over WiFi. Hooking the laptop up via Ethernet makes a huge difference. We also used an external camera and an external microphone. Both of these are because the built in laptop ones really don't work that well.
With Zoom, there were a couple issues that had to be solved. The first, and this is very common, is that when a person joins a conference, they usually are on mute and they need to turn their microphone on. Not a huge issue and that makes life easier as the host in the long run. The other problem was a new one for me, and on my end. My microphone also has the ability to connect an external speaker, most likely meant for headphones. Zoom detected this and set my speakers to the microphone, causing me to not have sound initially. Now that I know this, it'll be easy to prevent next time.
When we were all online, it was time to go through the ritual. First, we went over the ground rules, including how to ask questions, how we can mute/unmute people as needed, etc. The usual ritual was performed. I did a hammer hallowing of my space, and had the intent it was hallowing all those on the chat too. I called on the dwarves to uphold our rite like they uphold Ymir's skull, called on the land spirits to let us do the work, and the Ancestors, Freyja, and Odin to aide the seer. The hammer and dwarves are the only beings I held the intention to be both at my home and the participants. Looking back, I probably should also do the same for the land spirits. Needless to say, because of camera, I did this all sitting, so I could be seen on camera just fine. That was weird for me, but it worked well.
Then we get to the questioning. I was talked down into the trance with no problem, and saw what I normally do when I do this starting in Hel. After getting settled, the first question was asked. Not even before the question was over, I was seeing what needed to be done. Damn, this is working!? I take the time to describe what I'm seeing, which is what the person needed to start accumulating for a specific shrine in their house. It was a really strong vision that I had, and this partly surprised me. We then had a question about a pet, and again, this came through vividly for me. I could see the animal, and understand what it wanted. Even better, I did see the main color of the animal without having ever seen or asked about it in the past. We had a question of an ancestor. Well, this was slightly screwed up. I missed by a generation. That being said though, it was really moving for the people on both end of the question. Finally, we had a question for "Whomever wants to answer". Within seconds of it being asked, there was the Morrigan, and was passing on the information she wanted to.
My own nature spirits, aka my cats, also took part in the ritual. At the start, Epic decided he should lay on the veil. I get this from under him and he moves over. At some point he decided to leave. Kirk on the other hand, he came up in the middle of me answering questions and I fet his whiskers brushing up on my arm. I had to confirm this was cat and not something I was feeling in the other worlds. After that, he just laid near me, within arms reach. This added a whole new dimension for seeing.
When the ritual was done, we did a debrief. It was a good experience for all. The people that asked questions got answers that made sense. That's good. My guide has worked with me many times in previous sessions in that role. She had very similar experiences as when doing it live. As the seer, I had a very similar experience as during in person rituals. This surprised me. Because we were from Albany, NYC, and Ottawa CA, we were not really that close to each other. That being said though, I had prior relationships with the people online through teaching them this spae work, and one I've known and worked with for well over 10 years. So, we had a prior connection. This may be part of the reason it worked as well as it did.
One of the things that I was taught, and have taught as part of this work, is the group journey. This is great because it really builds up the group mind, and a group energy pool. When beginning, or expecting a long session this is very useful. The problem with doing it virtually though is that you can't be sure the people on the other end will journey themselves out. That's not really a good thing, so I didn't do a group journey to avoid worrying about this. This is actually my current practice any ways, but it does have the potential of diminishing the connection between seer and questioner. I also don't get that energy pool to draw upon, which for longer sessions may be an issue for the seer. The one thing I am not sure about is after care. I didn't allow possession on my end, which is a very common cause for after care needs. That said, it still is not something that has been encountered yet, and that is a concern of mine.
So, I am calling this a success. Everyone had a good experience overall. We will be doing this more in the future, so stay tuned. This is part of my service as clergy to the community, and my community appears to have grown to anyone with an internet connection.
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