Standing Deer

Walking the Path

Reflections from Standing Deer

Dear friends,

Welcome to my newsletter. I hope you are all doing well.

Life has been moving quickly these past few weeks, and I wanted to share a little of what has been happening, both in my own life and in the wider rhythms of nature.

One of the biggest changes is that I will soon be leaving Stockholm and moving to the countryside in northern Östergötland. On the 3rd of August I begin a new job, and after many years of dreaming, I will finally be living much closer to the forests, the rivers, and the land that calls to my heart.

Sometimes we have to shed an old skin before we can grow into the life we have been dreaming of.

It is not always easy to leave behind what is familiar, but every ending also carries the beginning of something new.

This new chapter will allow me to live more in harmony with nature. I look forward to hunting, fishing, growing vegetables, spending quiet mornings in ceremony, and continuing to deepen my relationship with the Earth.

I also have many exciting projects taking shape.

I am continuing to write my books, which have become a true labour of love. I am building ceremonial drums, developing new teachings, and expanding the work of Standing Deer. There will be opportunities for healing sessions, one to one weekends, and small retreats where people can stay in a simple cottage, share home cooked food, and reconnect with themselves through nature and ceremony.

Everything I create is guided by one simple intention: to walk in Ayni, living in right relationship with the Earth and with one another.

As another full moon has passed, I find myself reflecting on its teachings.

The Earth is speaking strongly now.

You can feel it in the winds, in the waters, and in the movement happening both within and around us.

Many people are searching for certainty in uncertain times. But this path has never been about certainty. It has always been about relationship.

Relationship with Spirit.Relationship with the Earth.Relationship with ourselves.Relationship with one another.

When we slow down enough to truly listen, we remember that life moves in cycles. Nothing stands still. Everything changes, transforms, and renews itself.

After the fullness comes release.After movement comes stillness.After darkness, light returns.

During this waning moon, allow yourself to soften.

Take time to breathe.

Walk in nature if you can.

Place your hands on the Earth.

Listen more than you speak.

There is wisdom waiting in the quiet places.

Never underestimate the power of a kind word, a quiet prayer, or a simple act of compassion. These small offerings ripple further than we can ever know.

Thank you for continuing to walk this path with me. Whether we have met in person, shared ceremony together, or simply connected through these words, I am grateful for each of you.

I hold you all in my prayers.

May Grandmother Moon continue to guide your steps.

With gratitude,

Standing Deer

www.standingdeer.se

Brunnen i gryningen

Det är den tiden på dygnet då slöjorna mellan världarna sägs vara som tunnast. Någon gång mellan klockan tre på morgonen och den stund då de flesta människor vaknar.

Vid den här tiden känns världen annorlunda. Allt är stilla. Fåglarna har precis börjat sjunga och dimman ligger kvar över marken. Det är varmt och kallt samtidigt. Här i Sverige, under den här årstiden, har mörkret redan gett vika. Det är ett mjukt gryningsljus som bjuder in till stillhet.

Jag vaknar nu tidig. Jag funderar på att gå ner till brunnen.
Inte för att söka svar, utan för att vara närvarande. Att lyssna. Att se vem, eller vad, som väljer att visa sig. Kanske kommer ett djur. Kanske en fågel. Kanske bara vinden och det kalla vattnet.

Ibland är det i tystnaden som de djupaste mötena sker.

Dagens dispacho

Midsummar in Sweden

Pitter patter pitter patter on the tin roof. Thor shows up and the midsummer celebrations can begin. This Swedish tradition is older than the country its self. As all traditions go its always the same.

The rain stops. The girls pick flower in white dresses. The ladys make sill lunch. The men prepare the snaps. (Spiced vodka). We sing about the frogs and the fox. And short funny songs before drinking the snaps. We always sit outside to show that summer is here. The first small potatos with sill are quite tasty when you get use to it. Then another funny song and another snaps. The mosquitoes invad as we eat a wonderful cake with wiped cream and strawberries. Everyone runs to the may pole ceromony

The may pole is an old Swedish fertility tradition. Whole familys join together. The girls have cover the pole with flowers. The pole often looks like a cross with two rings on each side. There are many interpretation of what the may pole represent. You deside. The men raise the pole. Its often so big that they need other poles to push it up. Everyone sing songs about the fox that ran over the field and the frogs that are fun to see. The smallest children get invalved dacing with all the mothers. Insureing that the next generation will have this wonderful traditions inbeded in them.By now the men are drinking beer.

Now the party starts. The men turn on the grill and drink beer. Now days the grill is gas. The women prepare the meat and the girls pick more flowers. They will put seven different flowers under there pillow to dream about the man they will marry. We all eat together drink beer and snaps and sing more funny songs. The men that make it, without falling asleep, follow the girls to the town dance.

A stage is made for the town dance. The years biggest event. Alot of couples meet for the first time. Many babys will be born in march.

The day after some will be happy some are sick and others just dont remember. One older woman told me a story. When she was young in the 1940s she met the boy of her dreams at the midsommar dance. The day after the boy came on his bike to visit her. His new found love. The bike ride took 3 hours in the raiin. When the boy got to the farm her father was waitning on the dirt road with a shotgun in his hand. The boy turned and went home but damage was done. Insureing that the tradition will live on.

15 juni 2026

Nymånerunläggning i Tvillingarna

Igår regnade det. Jag tillbringade dagen med att göra väldigt lite. Himlen var mörk och energin kändes låg. Detta är en naturlig tid att stanna upp. Nymånar handlar ofta mindre om handling och mer om reflektion. Ett ögonblick för att vila, lyssna och förbereda sig.

Men i morgon börjar en ny energi att stiga.

Nymånen i Tvillingarna för med sig nyfikenhet, kommunikation, lärande och nya idéer. Den bjuder in oss att ställa frågor, utforska olika perspektiv och knyta kontakt med världen omkring oss.

För denna nymåne drog jag tre runor:

Ingwaz · Dagaz · Hagalaz

Ingwaz talar om ett frö som vilar i helig mörker. Allt behöver ännu inte vara synligt. Vissa saker växer stilla under ytan. Potentialen samlar kraft.

Dagaz är gryningens runa. Mörkret börjar lätta och en ny förståelse träder fram. En förändring är på väg att ske. Det som tidigare verkade oklart kan snart visa sig. Budskapet är viktigt, men vi måste lyssna noggrant. Det finns så mycket brus, så många åsikter och distraktioner, att det är lätt att missa det som stilla försöker göra sig hört.

Hagalaz påminner oss om att förändring inte alltid är varsam. Ibland måste gamla mönster brytas sönder för att något nytt ska kunna växa fram. Stormen är inte fienden. Den renar luften och skapar utrymme för tillväxt.

Tillsammans talar dessa runor om en ny början. Något håller på att träda fram ur mörkret. En ny idé, en ny väg eller ett nytt sätt att se. Saker som har förblivit dolda kan snart komma fram i ljuset, inte genom tvång utan genom ny förståelse och tydligare kommunikation. Lita på processen. Lita på tajmingen.

Fröet är redo.

Gryningen närmar sig.

Och stormen röjer vägen.

— Standing Deer
15 juni 2026

Nymånerunläggning i Tvillingarna

Igår regnade det. Jag tillbringade dagen med att göra väldigt lite. Himlen var mörk och energin kändes låg. Detta är en naturlig tid att stanna upp. Nymånar handlar ofta mindre om handling och mer om reflektion. Ett ögonblick för att vila, lyssna och förbereda sig.

Men i morgon börjar en ny energi att stiga.

Nymånen i Tvillingarna för med sig nyfikenhet, kommunikation, lärande och nya idéer. Den bjuder in oss att ställa frågor, utforska olika perspektiv och knyta kontakt med världen omkring oss.

För denna nymåne drog jag tre runor:

Ingwaz · Dagaz · Hagalaz

Ingwaz talar om ett frö som vilar i helig mörker. Allt behöver ännu inte vara synligt. Vissa saker växer stilla under ytan. Potentialen samlar kraft.

Dagaz är gryningens runa. Mörkret börjar lätta och en ny förståelse träder fram. En förändring är på väg att ske. Det som tidigare verkade oklart kan snart visa sig. Budskapet är viktigt, men vi måste lyssna noggrant. Det finns så mycket brus, så många åsikter och distraktioner, att det är lätt att missa det som stilla försöker göra sig hört.

Hagalaz påminner oss om att förändring inte alltid är varsam. Ibland måste gamla mönster brytas sönder för att något nytt ska kunna växa fram. Stormen är inte fienden. Den renar luften och skapar utrymme för tillväxt.

Tillsammans talar dessa runor om en ny början. Något håller på att träda fram ur mörkret. En ny idé, en ny väg eller ett nytt sätt att se. Saker som har förblivit dolda kan snart komma fram i ljuset, inte genom tvång utan genom ny förståelse och tydligare kommunikation. Lita på processen. Lita på tajmingen.

Fröet är redo.

Gryningen närmar sig.

Och stormen röjer vägen.

— Standing Deer

Stonehenge – Day 5

The Gathering Place

The more I learn about Stonehenge, the more I find myself thinking about the people. How they lived.
The ordinary people. The mothers and fathers. The children. The workers. The storytellers. The knowledge keepers.

And who was leading it all? Was it kings? Or maybe women?

Archaeologists believe people traveled great distances to come here. Some came from hundreds of miles away, bringing stones, goods, knowledge and their stories.
I believe that.

Just imagine it. Or even better, journey on it.
What do you see?

In a time without roads, cars or maps, people still found their way to this place.

I think Stonehenge was more than a monument. I think it was a gathering place.
A place where tribes came together. Where friendships were formed. Where ceremonies were held. Where people shared food, stories and wisdom around the fire.

Getting stuck on this month's work, I decided to journey on it. To see how they lived. To smell the air and feel what was happening.
In my journey, I realized that people have not changed very much.

We still gather. We still seek friendship in others. We still search for places where we feel connected to something larger than ourselves.
Maybe that is why Stonehenge still calls to us today.

The stones remain. But what I feel most strongly is the presence of the people who once stood among them.

Standing Deer

Stonehenge

Day 4Why Did They Build It?

The more I learn about Stonehenge, the more one question stays with me.

Why?

Why did people spend generations moving these great stones and raising something that would outlive them?

The truth is, nobody really knows.

Some say it was a place for ceremony. Others believe it was used for healing, honoring ancestors, or following the movements of the sun and moon.

Maybe it was all of those things.

And then there are the questions that live more in the realm of mystery. Or in my own thoughts.

Could Stonehenge have been used to enter altered states of awareness? To step between worlds? To experience other dimensions of reality?

I do not know.

But it is something I feel in my stomach, so I write it down. Maybe it is nothing. Maybe it is something. For now, its still just a question.

As I sit with that question, I find myself thinking about the sacred places I have known. A quiet forest. A mountaintop. A fire shared with good people beneath the stars. Why go into all this work. We allready have places like this.

People have always gathered in places that help us remember who we are.

Maybe that is what Stonehenge was.

Not just a circle of stones, but a place where people came to feel connected. To the earth beneath their feet. To the sky above them. To their ancestors. To one another. Sort of like a great church and nature was being warshiped.

Maybe the greatest mystery is not why they built Stonehenge.

Maybe it is why, after all these years, we are still searching for the very same things.

Standing Deer

Stonehenge – Day 3
The Sky Was Their Teacher

As I move ahead on this journey with Stonehenge, I keep finding myself looking up. To the sky.

The people who built Stonehenge had no computers, no telescopes and no electricity. Not even the wheel. Yet somehow they understood the movements of the sun well enough to align the stones with the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset, as well as track the cycles of the moon.

The more I think about that, the more amazed I become.

Maybe they learned the same way many of our ancestors did. By paying attention. By watching the sky. By noticing when the birds returned, when the days grew longer and when the seasons changed. Year after year. Generation after generation.

Their knowledge was not written in books or stored in machines. It was learned through observation, shared through stories and passed down through the generations.

The sky was not separate from life then. It was part of everything. The sun marked the seasons. The moon lit the darkness. The stars guided, inspired and told their stories. The people who built Stonehenge lived much closer to these natural rhythms than most of us do today.

Today many of us spend more time looking down than looking up. We watch screens. We rush from one thing to another. Sometimes we forget to pause and notice what is happening around us. Maybe they understood something we have lost along the way. The value of simply paying attention.

Maybe that is one reason places like Stonehenge still call to us. They remind us to slow down, step outside, feel the wind on our face, watch a sunrise and remember to be grateful. They remind us that we are part of nature, not separate from it.

I think one of the greatest lessons of Stonehenge is not hidden in the stones at all.

I think it has been shining above us the whole time.

Standing Deer

Full Moon Journey
Stonehenge

Hello everyone,

At the last full moon I sat quietly and asked what I should learn about during this moon cycle.

The answer came clearly.

Stonehenge.

I never know why these things appear. They simply do.

So this month I will follow that calling.

I know very little about Stonehenge compared to some people, but maybe that is exactly why it appeared. Sometimes the spirits do not ask us to teach. Sometimes they ask us to become students again.

For the next moon cycle I will be exploring one of the most mysterious places on Earth, I think. I will read, listen, research, reflect and share some of what I discover along the way.

Already I am excited and fascinated by this subject, and I have been gathering information.

Some of the great bluestones were brought from the Preseli Hills in Wales, more than 150 miles away. No modern machinery. No metal tools. Just human hands, or so it seems, and a purpose we may no longer fully understand.

Why those stones?

Why travel so far?

The more I learn, the more questions I have.

Maybe it was more than a calendar.

Maybe it was more than a gathering place.

Maybe it was also a temple of some kind.

And then there is the sky and the stars.

The stones, as I understand it, align with the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset. Our ancestors watched the skies. They understood the movements of the sun, the moon and the seasons in ways many of us have forgotten.

But the stones remain.

Silent.

Patient.

Still teaching.

Waiting for us to remember.

Share what you know.

Share your photographs if you have visited.

Share your intuition.

Share the stories that call to you.

Whether you are interested in ancient wisdom, sacred sites, astronomy, sound, history or mystery, you are welcome around this fire.

Let us make this feel like sitting together around a fire, sharing stories and learning from one another.

Standing Deer