Loki and the giants have always insisted that I eat local food. They say the gods can get into the local food and cause the powers to work for me in it, healing me, removing curses and taking off the conditioning of the spiritual empires that are trying to stop shamanism from returning to the West.

Though I have tried to honor this, this past operation of Loki it became very clear that it was an imperative, so I bought all of my produce from the farmer’s market and generally resolved to live on the fruits of the season. It is winter. This season’s fruit is the apple, and the vegetables are the many tubers and root vegetables that keep over the winter. I found sellers of local grains and beans, artisanal cheeses, and the wine from the region that isn’t as bad as I feared.

It also engenders goodwill in the local ghosts, who are able to enjoy the local foods and traditional food preparation techniques in ways they cannot get with industrialized food. Many of the great wise ones “make” in food preparation, and I am convinced that it is the making of sourdough bread, yogurt, and sauerkraut that has enabled them to heal me and work with me.

It was going only local in my food and even refusing to participate in the smorgasbord of free food at the office–meetings have eats–that I have been able to perceive certain things and resolve to live better.

Ceremonial magicians have to be very psychically open to work with the spirits of animals, plants, and the land itself–called “giants” in the Norse religion–that we are easily drained in our essential biological energies from people in the giant systems.

Power workers draw energy from the human grid around them. This is a fact that is not publicized about churches. The underworld needs power workers, so it allows them to take the energy preferentially.

Persons of higher social class also draw power, because humans are hierarchical, and we naturally distribute power upwards. We are also unable to defend ourselves in power if we do not have higher class.

One of the ways the giants have come up with to defend me from being depleted by the human grid is to eat local and work in the powers of the land. Occasionally some foodstuff does come from other places–like spices–and I make a special extra prayer and offering for it, and the powers who come from other places or who work in travel are able to back it for me.

The gods can also feed me power in the foods of this land. It is very healing. It is also transformative for the alien work. An alien worker has to be made into an intermediate energy being, both before and after death. This is facilitated by the chthonic gods in local food.

It is also necessary to have a great deal of isolation from other humans in the work of the sea and nature, though close to the area where I am backed.