I have claimed my birthright as the “Alaska Úlfhé∂nar”

Born: Late January of 1966 under a Waxing Gibbous moon in Western Ohio, of the United States.

Zodiak: I am a proud Aquarius, connecting me to any large body of water, which has led to me calling southcentral Alaska my home for thirty years now. Before relocating to Alaska, I have lived in many different magical places throughout this wonderful country. From the sacred lands of the Navajo tribe in southeastern Arizona, to the hallowed grounds of the VooDoo Priestesses in southern Louisiana, after beginning a journey in the upper eastern seaboard in Ohio, and New Jersey.

Title: I have been called: Druid, Witch, Mystic, Magician, Sei∂r, and now Shaman. None of these titles really mean much as I choose: Husband, Father, Grandfather, Brother, Uncle, Provider, yet I prefer to just be a friend.

I am Mark, the great-grandson of Jens Peterson of Bjergby, Denmark, and of Maurice Noonan of Lismore, Ireland. I am the third generation born here in the U.S. from a very long line of Danes (53 generations researched so far (estimated to 731)), both in the Jutland of Denmark, and (at-least) 12 generations from Lismore, northwestern Waterford County, Ireland. My great-grandfather’s call me “fróðleikr ulfr Norþæn” which, translated from old Norse means (magical wolf from the north).

“Magisk Ulv fra Nord”

I’d like to take just a moment and introduce myself. I, like yourself, am but a traveler through a physical lifetime of learning, living, and loving. Within the last couple of decades, my ancestors have contacted me through my subconscious mind and have begun to explain many things to me. I will not claim to have all the answers, for I too sometimes struggle with understanding the words given to me from my ancestors through the visions I have with them. However, in the many years I have had in this life I have experienced a substantial amount of trauma and sacrifice, thereby providing me with an ample experience base to draw on. I ask that you join me in interpreting the words of my ancestors and seeing how we can apply it to our everyday life. I proudly serve my communities (both online and off) as both: a counselor for individuals suffering from debilitating psychological trauma, as well as an active, working Celtic-Norse Shaman. My beliefs are that the health of the spiritual self dictates the physical and mental health of our self. After extensive academic studies in religious interpretations throughout the world, I have arrived at my Celtic-Norse roots. I have come to understand the relationships between the spiritual and physical planes of existence, and constantly work to help individuals understand their position in that relationship.

During my existence I have struggled with many of the same things that many people do. Struggles like. enduring an abusive alcoholic parent, or returning to civilian life after a tour in the U.S. military, or even surviving a heroin overdose in late 1989. However, following the overdose, I would discover a path of growth and living that amazes me, even today, some thirty-five years later. Seven months, almost to the day following my sobriety from heroin, I would marry my shield maiden in a small ceremony in western Washington, that was over 33 years ago now. I now spend, from then to now, enjoying our five children, and four grandchildren who bless my existence everyday.

The message I carry is one of hope. Is one of redemption. The understanding that each of us carries the power of change and the ability to manifest joy and harmony when we actively seek it.

I have chosen to claim the title of a Celtic-Norse Shaman, as I am called by my ancestors to that path. Both: online as a teacher of spiritual understandings, and offline working within many different communities as a counselor and a healer, I spend most of my time offering my services to the many who have become disenfranchised with modern religious practices, as well as my brothers and sisters returning from conflicts struggling to reacclimatize to the non-military world. By using the understandings offered by my ancestors, I have discovered that many have been able to heal their minds, and move forward to happier, more peaceful lives.

In the winter of 2019/2020 I received a vision that would confirm my birthright as an Úlfhé∂nar of Ó∂inn the all-father that would again alter the path of my trajectory through this existence. Using my inherited gift of speaking to those called the Landvætti, my intellectual growth accelerated to an enormity of understandings and recognitions. Fitting hundreds of puzzle pieces of my life together to fully understand the entirety of my journey.

My calling is to retell the oral history of my ancestry, and impart upon my listeners/readers the idea of “the self”. I attempt to help individuals look past the inherent value judgments encouraged and supported by most organized “religions” and determine their individual journeys. Assisting people in understanding that it is because of this inherited intrinsic value judgment, passed through generation after generation, attempting to force the population to behave a certain way, predominantly relying on guilt and shame to emotionally punish individuals for wanting to think, and act, differently, that there remain remnants of these memories that linger within our subconscious and lay the groundwork to be overrun by a larger traumatic event. These practices rely on most people not understanding the “mystical ways” of the spiritual world that lies outside normal preview. It is this fact alone that has convinced me that my ancestors did have it right, believing in themselves, and their own ancestry.