If you were to touch the barren tree, and call forth its fruit in the touching, your hand would have to know the whole history of the tree and its speciation, for history is the process of manifestation and materialization. In the material world, things materialize through time, and therefore to understand them is to understand their process. To bring out potential, one must bring out potential through the very real struggle of the thing's history. In order to work magic, you must understand the struggles that live at the very heart of that which you would transform, and find a creative way to meet those challenges which existentially face that which is to be transformed.
To know something, you must know its development. You must know its process of genesis. You must know its history of tangles, and that with which it is interwoven, and that through which it has interstrewn. You must know its knots, the contradictions that it has laid and that it has had laid upon it, and which it is struggling to work through, even as it creates new contradictions.
Reality is history. This does not mean the dead past ; it means the living past, the past which refuses to die and wraps itself around and forms the integument and structure of every manifest thing in the world. It includes the living, green pith as well as the encrustations, and all of these combined are that which we confront when we look upon a thing in the world. Everything is a battle which is striving through active combat towards victory. And thus, because every thing is its own history of struggle, knowledge is not smooth. It is textured, it is difficult, it is hard-won, and change is not easy, for it must contend with the entire history of forces that are inherent in that which one is attempting to change. The forces resist us, and resist change, at the same time as they tend towards their own kinds of changes and processes. Thus, the world is beautifully, thickly, enmeshedly difficult, and because of this very difficulty, it is real, it is complex, it is intriguing, it is sinewed and fibred and grounded, it outlasts us, and therefore provides an environment in which all of our own struggles may take place and have meaning.
That our thoughts do not modify everything is the greatest blessing. If there were nothing to resist us, what a nightmare world we would live in, as our own untamed souls, souls that have not yet come into their own flourishment and order -- that vital order which a soul must find in order to become whole -- this disordered soul of ours would manifest nightmare, and all the world would be nightmare such as we cannot imagine. But for the world resists us, we must learn it, and through that process of learning, in the very midst of the difficulty, and grappling and engaging with the hindrances, our soul finds that order which is inherent in it. The encounter between the world of difficulty and the yearning soul draws out the order within that soul, that lies pregnant within it.
That is the often unrealized genius of the prima materia, this monstrous matter that much of the time confronts us as dull, purposeless, opaque, adverse, dumb, even ferocious in its grossness and enormity. But the sagacity and ingenuity of the Gods is to be able to see into that which seems useless and find its use. They are able to take even that which does not fit and find a way for it to fit, thus making it good. And so the world is in a process of being made good. An enormous lump of this stuff, this writhing, protean, chaotic, monstrous matter, which they tore apart from the raging monstrous beast Ymir, they impregnated with patterned life, that through the process of evolution has an opportunity to find its own order through time. Because of the scaled levels of resistence that the world presents us with, this world becomes an arena of challenges, and thus, a nursery of heroes.
We are still in the primordial process of creation, which was interrupted by strife. The final fruition of this prima materia has not been reached. Only through the long work of that spirit which has been impregnated into matter can the world finally, over long stretches of time, reach its fruition. And in that stage of time in which each of us are assigned, and ensnarled, each of us are gnarls, and we gnarl our way towards our defining destination.
Against dissipation, to hold : to hold onto one's treasure is an awesome power in a world where so much is evanescent, and so much slips away. To hold is to keep together and keep whole that which is precious and yet which would threaten to disperse into the four winds, and to keep it where it may be cherished. One of the old meanings of the word "hold" was loyalty, and it was the loyalty of the heart extended out into the world, saying, "No, I shall not let go of that which is precious to me," knowing that much would slip away ; that in this world of transience, where wyrd is ever changing and becoming, much slips through our fingers, even as we experience it, and in fact that most does, but that some things are not to be allowed to slip through. They must be regathered and held, and this extends even to the ancestors. The ancestors are not just cherished for what they may do for us in the other world, but that we love them and will not let them go.
Our love extends that far, for even over the threshold of death itself, we shall not abandon them, but claim them. We claim them even over that abyss from which none return, but still we say, they are ours. We extend that relation of love even beyond the doorstep of existence itself, into the substrata beneath and within existence, Hel, the hidden interiority within the unseen heart of existence, and say, we are all of one unit. All whom we love are tied together. And to do so with those who are now grounded in the very heart of existence itself is often what gives us the power and root to do so in this changing and mutable world where things have not yet found their final form. That which is dead is done ; it has found its final form, and therefore has a stability that the wonderful living world has not yet found. But once again we must remember that death does not have a connotation held in bad faith of ghostliness or deadenedness. Those words are relative to our world, to the realm of husks and compost and rotting. Once someone is dead, their spirit-form finds flourishment and fulfillment and stability, for the final doom pronounced at their afterworld hearing by the Gods is etched into the Tree itself. Indeed, as I have commented before, in some ways, the dead are far more alive than we are. We are the ones who are trying to find our alivement, and this life is our first journey in that direction.
So we do accept much of the transience of the world, as the Buddhists urge, but we also urge -- and this is the other hand of the equation that is so important -- to hold on to that which is your treasure. That which can be gathered into significance, and given the coherence of that wholeness or heill which is the holy order the Gods bless this Earth with, has the strength to persist beyond all the streamings and doings-undoings that unfold in the passage of time. The word treasure itself refers to the heirlooms, which take on value because they were held by the hands of the cherished family members and passed on. And so, we do not allow even death to separate us.
It is not something that can be proven scientifically, but we defy even science with our faith, a faith that is not a blind belief, but an assertion. It is a laying down of our law and our will. We will not let them go. We will that we will not let them go. There is therefore an element of boldness, daring, and assertion to our faith, and even audacity, to speak beyond that which the five senses would permit us. To speak and say, our loved ones we still love, and hold close to us. We say this beyond the apparent world of manifestation, for we understand that death has literally under-mined our loved ones and beneathed them beyond manifestation. The five senses would be pointless in this regard. Our will stretches beyond what the eyes can see.
If our faith extends our will this far, beyond that which can even be seen, then it gives us the strength to hold in this tornado-world where all is so often in flux, and to develop the will to hold and keep the precious coherent and alive in our lives. It will often be a battle, but it is a battle with significance.
The thunder is His son, but so is the snow-white bliss of wisdom and righteousness. The flashing blade that strikes out against evil is His son, but so is the honey-tongued psalmster of mirthful glory. The fur and claw toothed bear of ferocity is His son, but so is the silent, ever-waiting wooded one, who shall the end of times redeem. He births the fury whose name is vengeance, restoring honor to the injured kin, but so He calls into his castle the bright, fecundous lord of feasts and frithful harvests. He fosters the fire who all watching wards the hearth of homes, but so he fosters the shining soul of the most widely traveled. His home is a home of heroes, His star-tower a wizard's yeshiva. His throne an all-worlds observatory. Storms' Master, He unleashes the might and rush of wisdom's inspiration all against the up-spiral'd life-tree's foes. What He holds in one hand, He other hand tempers ; the half His vision outwards, the other inward-depths is drawn. He is the wise passion of moderation having found its fullness, the all-worlds' chaos given shape and found form, the seed of spirit sown in matter, uprising in the the mead of inspiration. Praise this over-arching Breath between the many heavens' worlds, who all around bestows His Spirit.
His name is Awe he rides eight-legged across the brachiated jewel-studded heavens with everywhere his destination. Oh, Awe looks over all and all-descending, transforms a'times into that which Awe beholds which always in gaze of wonder seeks the dancing creature, swaying bough, to speak that poem of flashed, collaged moments of peak this braided song of involute, ecstatic gasp cosmos is, and Awe, in moment-sampling, blends with the bliss far-and-wide branched starry boughs across the many worlds offer. Awe is everywhere, and above, wherever Awe chooses, for Awe is the Father of All ; and we, in awe, are with Awe, and give that worship the Awe of All, The All of Awe, demands.
O one of the wide-brimmed starry hat, O cloaked in the four corners of sky, O baffler, O riddler, O ponderer of deepest, shrouded secrets, O crazed intellect, high on the quest's exhilaration, Come, O plumber of depths, come, O seeker of lore, Come, O treasurer of the vaults of Saga, Come and share the smallest share, a crumb or table-scrapp'd bite of hard-won wisdom, for those who seek the see-through of the all-too-solid opaque. Glimpse-gift us, Breeze Rider, Wit & Wish Crafter, O Ur-Thanc Lord of the deepest penetration, Insight! All things inlight seeing ; Let us grasp a passing flash of realest marvel, Objective dazzle of indreamed cells & stars that we might, so small, for an instant grasp a glance at what Large Mind you see through, Lord, for we are yearning seekers after sagedom, Much Wise, & seek to touch our minds one moment, O Fully Swift, with yours, & taste the whole spin and span of ages, long roll of arcane symbols uberwit ponders on scrolls a toss of lifetimes might start to fathom. Too long locked up has been the hidden ages-lost lore, O Lord of Asgard's Heights! With a simple wave of the wand of your bladed shaft, you glaze the black, and make crystal what before was solid stone, & so may we see through, O Pulsing Rapids' Master, for we would seek to ride that pulse, and know this mazes world you still aft all this time do marvel yet, & taste the Godly gain of wisdom, even at that hundredth trace diluted. Let us your ever-seeking proteges become, O Wondrous Father.
I have a hard time believing that the heathen community wants to grow. Heck, I have a hard time believing that there even is such a thing as a heathen "community". Is there? It seems to me that there are just a bunch of hobbyists at best.
One thing of which I am certain : if there were a heathen community, and particularly one that wanted to grow, this blog would not be on the boondocks of the web, and would receive not only a lot more attention, but a lot more participation, because good things are being said and explored on this blog. And yet I feel most of the time as if I am shouting into the emptiness.
And if I write poetry, forget it ... no one will pay attention. This despite the fact that poetry was incredibly important to our ancestors. A good poem could land one an estate.
I have consistently worked to enrich our understanding of the Gods, and I have done it through inspiration grounded in rigorous research and close attention to the original sources and wellsprings of folklore.
This isn't a point of ego, although I well should have earned much more honor for my efforts than I have, but a much more important point ... when treasures are generally neglected, there is something wrong with a "movement". Or even more to the point, when a "movement" shows no movement at all, it is ... stagnating, which pretty much guarantees that the Master of Wod, that quality of dynamis that is cracklingly intelligent turbulence, is going to leave it in the wayside of evolution's riptides, where it probably belongs.
This to me is such a shame it is hard to overlabor the point. There is an opportunity being missed here. Does anyone get that this is an incredibly powerful theology and beautiful inview on the cosmos? The way has might and grace and grandeur. And yet all I hear about in "the community" is either petty, petty politics, or silence, and I think ... the Gods don't seem to be lending much luck, and I wonder why.
Is this how you want it to go? The way of a fad, something not worth developing? Do you really want to get everything you can out of this, or is it just an excuse to be mentally and socially lazy?
There are literally hundreds of pages archived on this blog, full of rich and deep material, material that could become a springing board for further evolutions and discussions that might lead in a progressive direction.
Are you interested in those discussions? Are you interested in evolution?
I'm not by any means saying I am the only one pushing the envelope, but I am certainly one of them, and I often wonder why I am even bothering. The feedback is so seldom and sparse I question why I am pouring so much talent into all this. Of course I am doing so to honor the Gods. But there is the missing element of the Folk ... Where are the Folk?
Is there any reason for this blog to continue? Do you want it to continue? Is vivid imagery, careful argument, developed devotion, and exploration of difficult existential and social issues important to you? There are many fascinating topics and issues I would be inspired to tackle if I felt there was any interest at all to raise my level of inspiration.
"I give you the gift of dawn," exclaimed the sun in brilli'ed clamor. "Unpack what plexed within the day shall offer." She spoke before the rust-enflamed wings horizon-wide of Delling, dawn the citadel of Eastern elf whose upward rose-enpetall'd feathers call the Day out from the Night. "I give you all and awe-ly chance to dance beneath the light, for Day is paged book of life's each golden chapter, pages turned by Night's jet fingers. For I do burden-draw across the heavens but a ringed mirror polish'd within whose gaze each creature sees her own reflected brightness. What all the green unknowing give I looking glass a'back return with gain of subtle warmth a'gathered from my ample heart ablaze, with bright thanksgiving for the pageant greening 'neath my white-hooved pave. I see your every all in glory, humble giving without ask. Without the asking, I give back, for praise is lover's gaze reflected free in sweet duet, and I from lovers' isle emerge, and each Day dip down into Western lands where lovers' Gods do find. Think not I receive not your spirit's freely given light : for all do each Day see it shining as I bridge above your blessed plains. Good Day. Good Day to you, my creatures! Praise the opportunity of Day to truly shine. Good Day!"
And in that moment last, between the jaws within which saw he stars, and something more, he leapt, for maw was portal then, without the Wolf a'knowing all ; and spied the Mighty Sage a thousand branches more extending out from o'er the other side of tree, the limbs a feast of fruited worlds a'hung with swirling sway of other starry seas, and mind agape with holy hunger then for myst'ries more which beckon'd to him there, he smil'd, trusting Baldur ward the world, and gave his final leap, and robbed the Wolf of any gain or sating ; Vidar came and holding ope the rav'nous jaws, he slic'd, and reached within as had been planned fore'er to pull his Father out, but to his shock, the gut was empty! No one there at all! And plunging sword into the wolfen heart, he backed away, his mind a'daze, and met on Idavoll the other Gods who there were gathered. There they ponder'd all the ancient myst'ries of their Father of the All, and Baldur, twinkling eyes alive, remarked, "Out there," and they all nodded, knowing well the thirst of God to know more wondrous worlds.
And when his journeys long were last complete, the all of stars and time wrapped up within his knowing, joyous, world-tree jolly heart, as last without the ward of world he plighted duty first against the awful foes and trolls, now all cleared out, and back on track the world, could now his fullest heart's delight go out a'wand'ring far and wide, as he had once, and wisdom now in fullness ripen'd, share the all of laws that o'er great times he'd gathered. Came he then the All of God to share what All of Tree he'd slowly captur'd on his missing, wonder'd journeys out afar, and all the Gods were learned a'new, to guide what journeys now in peace the kin of men might slowly make o'er endless stretch of time. He settled all the judgements, laid to rest the ancient charges, shaped the holy settlements where new Gods rule in light of all His glory.
There, where auburn-gold glows from foiled leaves whose crinkling adds windchime to sun rising and setting ; There, atop that crystalline crown, in the canopies wherein lay all the sparks of Muspell ; There, such meadows of heaven as ne'er the mortal eye who wouldst return to Midgard hath seen ; There, where such beasts of marvel glow silver or golden, as per the light resplendant and ambient : That oak-branched argentine-tined white & ghostly roebuck, who e'er his own velvetine, fur-trimmed skin bathes in that highest of overflowing waterfalls, the rushing raindrop torrent pours night-light scattering spray o'er his magnificent antlers ; That shaggy white-furred, full udder'd goat capering o'er the aurelian-shield thatched glory of Hall's Fallen Might, whose ample flows of milk fall flavored as honey-spiced mead ; That full-wisened eagle who rests in the high-foilaged perch, its wings the hue of noon's sun blotted by sunset's blood, watching, o'erwatching ; and there, between his very aquiline eyes the full-weathered kestrel curious falcon-fallow broods ; with that whisking, ashen-haired bushy-tailed rascal a-scurrying up-a-down the many-branched quartz-translucent trunk whose bulk beyond eyes holds the whole star-lined living frame together ; There, beneath the highest high mountain crags, where cliff-ensconced the silver-seat of prophecy sits bulwarked in the argent-lined granite walls of All-Father's far-seeing hall, beneath whose stony foundations dark runs its star-infloresced glow below to all the leaf-sheltered halls dotted meadow & thick-thicketed field, on that grandest of gold-fortressed plains, high, high above the whole circle of worlds ; There, where Thor once warded the sun-englared shining blade ; There, upon those ample plains lay Our Lady's lavender and wort-orcharded estate, replete with long labyrinthed rows of burgundy vines, ripe and potent, wild and serpentine, where all th'veneriline flock full-gasp rapture in engypsied, turkishine all-arms-up mad mania of Volta's blossom, to swoon at mere river's flection of Her High Bride's night's unveiling upon the throne atop that lovely, once-elf-crafted Mons of Venus. They say the undulate inflorescence of undine anenome starlight spackled ring-and-circle rapture dances in the air above that grassy knoll where Night's spangled twinkling quasars wink as elfine maids and rising knaves, a'bow in the high-hilled ballroom's courteous prelude, elegant ; and those who besom-and-beast ride high feather fly ascent that Brocken peak may lay their prayer-tapestried linens there, that She may, sauntering in the weeks that follow that furious dance, bend, and thumb-fingered lift those runed, soft doilies and read, and Her mind pleased by the voluptuous feast of full-ecstate, open-heart elation, grant us such love as full-season bounty for our worthy deeds She deems fit ; and for this I brew that sap of the buzzing swarm's hive that She might be described in such psalm as stupor-lifts the layman to enpraised words.
As I have stated before, the essential function of tradition is to stimulate the development of maturity. Its job is to work and wring out and knead and beat and draw forth and weave in in multiple layers your juvenility until it grows, and grows thick into maturity. In other words, a tradition's purpose is "to make a man (or woman) out of you", and if it's not doing that, then there is either something wrong with the tradition as it has been handed to you or as you are practicing it, or you aren't doing the work with that tradition that you should.
Tradition is thus a way for the elder and particularly once-alpha leaders to tell the juvenile up-and-comer's, "Knock it off", and "get your act together". It can do so gently and poetically for those youngsters who are eager to learn, sensitive, and willing to listen ; and it can do so rather bluntly and in a real no-nonsense, even "drill sergeant" way for those youngsters who have no intention of listening to anyone, and are eager to promote their own semi-ignorance rather than to learn.
If the majority of people practicing your tradition around you seem like they have never graduated from junior high or high school in terms of their behaviors and attitudes, then someone is playing dress-up and not actually doing the work of the tradition. And if doing the work of the tradition would drive them off, don't accomodate them to keep them : let them drift whereever their workless drift would take them anyway. They are dead weight and need not be kept around. When and if they're serious, they can come back and do the work.
"Making a man out of you" doesn't mean turning you into a grizzled, disappointed, bitter, cynical, and broken man who acquiesces to the reality you're handed. It does mean being able to weather disappointment, and trusting in the seasons to fund and source resilience, as winter inevitably (with help and will of Gods and Alfar) returns to spring. It is that resilience which comes out of long and hard experience which is the key here to maturity, because maturity ought be the flowering of idealism, and not its extended funeral. In order for a seed to flower, it may first need to toughen up its stem, strive with all might and crazed yearning for the sun, and grow thorns, but it must not forget its flowering, for if it forgets that, it forgets its glory, and its purpose, and the new seeds fail to fall upon the soil.
Maturity comes through encouragement and inspiration, and it also comes through scolding. Much of maturity is working through our scolding. The community speaks through its scolds, and we must determine what is of value and what is not in the scoldings. There inevitably will be much of value in the scolding. There will also be a great deal that is utter crap. But good scolds return us to our shoulds, and in fact have the same root. Scolds sting, and ought to. They are reminders, they force us to do introspection, and question where we are not standing as upright in the mirror as our dignity demands. Here the mirror is the world itself. For this, we ought not hold back our scolds, but our scolds should be as should be, not according to our own ignorance, parochialism, or narcissism, but as another whom we would respect falls short of that calling to progressive nobility with which the Gods beckon.
In deeply stewed and fermented disappointment lies the rich soil out of which new harvests may come. Sometimes we receive the disappointments we need, difficult as they are. They are not sent, Gods forbid, to crush our idealisms, but rather to show where our idealisms were imperfect in their conceptions, that we might make them lither, more flexible, and more congruent with the evolving wyrd we wish to shape. Disappointments force us to face up to realities we had rather avoid. In defeats lie seeds of greater victories if we will listen to what the faults tell us, and bring the full weight of our mind and our inspirations to bear upon the problems that we might learn what we need to learn to move on.
The heathen "community" is disappointing, very disappointing. It does not, on the whole, foster maturity, but is run for the most part by the most juvenile, who are pulled by whims of pettiness, of shallowness, and of simple thrill-seeking expressing itself in sophomoric behaviors and stereotyped slogans. A kindred, while it ought have mirth and the main of festivity, is not a frat party. A sumble and a tavern ought have a completely different feel. Blots are not excuses to get together, drink beer, and brag (in the vulgar sense). Again, it would be much better if heathen religious practice were far more intimidating, not in any macho sense, but in the sense of expected prerequisites, level of rigor, and strictly enforced behavior codes. ("Strictly enforced behavior codes" need not imply any level of puritanism, as behavior codes can incorporate mirth, festivity, and frith, but they can certainly distinguish these in very explicit ways from their counterfeits and those who would call upon their counterfeits in the name of these very real heathen values.) That might not win any converts too easily, and might very well alienate those who think they are already heathen, but so what? Quantity or quality? I believe that out of the disappointment and failure of the heathen "community" may come a greater maturity, if processed and worked through, that may lead to something more authentic and sustainable.
We might begin by emphasing sculd over bragi. Don't brag and get all mighty on yourself if you haven't first acknowledged your debts and begun to pay them off. Your first boasts ought be to work hard to pay off whatever debts you might have. Your debts accrue according to your flaws and injuries, as well as the debt of potential with which you are born and which you must pay back by developing who you are, individuating, and therefore giving back the fruit of your own flowering. Someone ought come to a blot fully conscious of one's debts. Kindreds ought encourage their members to do inventories of where they are in debt, both materially, on an economic level, and spiritually, where they have assaulted the rights of others and done injury. And just as a little hint : if you're still a jackass, maybe you ought to be working on yourself. Chances are you're probably in a fair amount of debt. Sure, you may not be a killer, nor even an out and out criminal, but you know, all those little snubs, all that petty bullying, be it physical or emotional, all that strife-sewing, however small, adds up over time : penny by penny the bank fills up. Don't strut your stuff until you've done your time.
"Do Your Time" really ought to be a heathen slogan of first priority. It's definitely not sexy, which commends it from the get-go. Do the inventory. Where have you hurt others? Where are you still a nasty bastard? How do you exploit others? Where are you failing to live up to your potential? How are you redeeming all the time and energy and money that has been invested by others in your life? Where are the weaknesses that are not only keeping your best sides from flowering, but actually draining off any luck or heil you might receive from the Gods or ancestors?
"But wait ... that doesn't sound like a warrior ..."
Shut up. You don't get to be a soldier in our army until we've put you through boot camp, and you've proven to our satisfaction that you're ready to fight for the values we stand for. We don't just want random mayhem-seekers. This is not a religion that is about carnage and sociopathy. Prove to us first that you know what you're fighting for.
And put a muffle on the glory-talk, braggart. It's empty talk, and you know it. Don't talk to us about the glory of battle and other such platitudes when you haven't even done your homework. Get down to business. Roll up those sleeves and do the work.
"Do The Work". Another great heathen slogan. Figure out where you're deficient, and begin working on it. Unless you're dealing with an enemy --- and I don't mean a rival, I don't mean someone with whom you got into a spat, I don't mean some petty internet feud, I mean a real enemy who acts on the will to undo your existence --- a real heathen is decent towards others. Honor demands it. You don't need to be warm and fuzzy towards everyone. That's reserved for proven friends and family. But unless someone is a literal enemy, you ought be decent, even if you don't like them. It's courteous, and in the long run, it preserves frith.
Before you come before the Gods, take a little note of what an ass you've been throughout your life. Get a little embarassed. Figure out where you need to shore up. You're facing some mighty impressive presences here, beings who didn't just talk about doing something great, who didn't glory in someone else's greatness, but who actually did great things, and moreover, deeds of great foresight and benevolence. Look at your life, your petty little life. Look, I don't mean to demean you, but you know far better than I do where you've been a little shit, and you damn well know there have been plenty of times, far more often than your pride would want to admit. Well, you can try to hide it from yourself, and you can try to hide it from others, but you cannot hide it from the Gods. They see that and smell its reek from miles off. Consider how far your prayers extend when you so willfully remain in such debt and unwholeness.
"Well, all this scolding and focus on debts and faults doesn't seem very heathen to me. Heathenism is about Pride."
No. You're wrong. Heathenism is about Pride From Merit. Merit through maturity. Grow up. A big man, a bold man, knows his faults, and does the work, however humble, every day. It's not easy. But it means when you have done your work and earned your merit, then you get to have genuine pride, and not just empty, bombastic boasting with no real weight of authentic brag behind it.
You don't have to be perfect ; you are expected to mature. If even those who ought to be elders are juvenile geeks, then you have a tradition of fools, no tradition at all. Good luck getting audience from the Gods.
Tough words, tough life. Face facts and do your growing ; find the secret resilience. Are you digging your well? Have you found the hidden springs? Are you so puffed up on yourself you're neglecting to tend your own garden?
The Thursar do not know that Yggdrasil exists. Its glassy gold is to them, as to many of us, invisible, and thus they laugh at its invocation. To them, only the chaos of monstrous matter, visible before their eyes, exists, and they know not, therefore, the cradle and womb of that chaos, which takes it up and weaves it into a living context.
The living order at the heart of matter is not immediately evident to purely empirical eyes. Such a notion is easily scoffed at, particularly by those for whom only the effects of brute force are real. (Think of how much "force" is a basic concept in our rudimentary physics!) But there are those who are able to see with eyes of meaning, and know that what they see through those eyes is as real as what the physical eyes see.
You can't see Yggdrasil. You can't point to its branches. You cannot show its trunk. You cannot prove its deep roots. Yet it is that totality of life and meaning, which encompasses and yet transcends the biological and material, for which the Gods train to fight and protect. It is that which fully matters.
It matters because it is important ; and it also "matters" in the sense that it exhudes as an epidermal shedding from its deeper flows that material world of flesh and bone and bark and stone we know so well. Thursar look at the shed husks and conclude it is all.
No wonder they are so hungry. No wonder they would eat the world. For they feed their souls on the tablescraps of the Great Feast, and bemoaning their starvation, brutally assault the world to feed that endless gnawing.
There is more. It is alive. It cannot be seen with physical eyes.
This is what we teach. This is the essence of what the ancestors passed on. This is the center around which even Gods are peripheral. The cosmos is alive, and we only follow our own Gods' example when we do worship a tree.
Putting rhetoric aside, and basing evaluation entirely upon actions and interactions, I would define the heathen community at present largely as a group dedicated to the worship of Loki.
I do not claim that this worship is explicit in terms of external dedication, ceremony, or words, but rather that it is inherent in those deeds acted upon and the quality of interactions.
The level of sheer strife, beyond the level of basic human imperfection and conflict, beyond even that ordinary level of cynicism we expect for human beings in a corrupted age, when Baldur has fallen, is really quite extraordinary, which is to say it is deplorable. It points to a very rudimentary level of social evolution, where decorum, courtesy, conflict-resolution, and clear thought remain at frankly juvenile levels of stunted growth.
One need not look very far and wide to discover such disappointing dedication and devotion to principles of strife. It is both prevalent and frequent. And it does not reflect the kind of interpersonal development the Gods wish for us to attain. But that is our choice. We can choose the path of sustainability and survival, or we can give way to faction, slander, and the politics of continual disappointment, and watch efforts become swallowed by time and consigned thereby to the garbage bin for overall value. In this, we ought not wonder at widespread divestment by those with talent and who are dedicated to excellence, for the very fact that wisdom after a time urges the best to not throw in their good value with that which has little more intent than the vagaries and storms of the unconscious moment.
It represents a genuine and rather deep crisis in the heathen community. This crisis can be taken seriously, addressed with both personal soul-searching and interpersonal intelligence, and worked through, or it can be pooh-poohed, cynically noted with resignation, or avoided, with the ultimate result of being pronounced by history itself as being irrelevant to the ongoing survival and thrival of the species.
I'm not certain that the depth of this crisis is appreciated. It touches fundamental religious issues. Something is wrong with our worship forms if they are not creating greater and more lasting levels of unity capable of riding out transient storms of conflict. We are tested by the ways in which we handle conflict, and overall, the learning curve at this point is not too encouraging. The wise ones stand back from the petty conflicts and just ride it out, but there is something more fundamental going on that requires address. It seems to me that a level of hypocrisy, and one that is quite deadly to our vitality, has entered into our rituals, one akin to the Sunday-Christian phenomenon of professing one thing in church and living something entirely different. Such hypocrisy indicates that there is a lack of honesty and authenticity in our rituals about what our authentic struggles are, and a failure to pray for the ability to skillfully and gracefully work through such struggles. It would seem we are speaking bold words, and getting caught up in the bombasticism of the moment, declaring things our actions and indeed the very texture of our lives belie. We speak of loyalty, of honor, of kinship, of wisdom, of frith, and of strength. These are easy things to speak about. They are heady and they sound good. One feels glorious merely reciting the words.
We learn the right things to say within a group and then we say them. We receive our accolades and make our alliances. It really doesn't matter what the words are. It could be this group's creed, it could be that group's creed. It could be beautiful words, it could be ugly words. It doesn't really matter. We aren't much listening anyway.
The last thing in the world we want is to really face our deficiencies and do the work required to improve upon them. That requires awareness, soul-searching, and real work. No, just pass the horn around and say some things that will make people feel good and self-important in the moment. Then do whatever you want. Do what you were going to do anyway. Follow your whims, and if it takes you into conflict, be as nasty as your unconscious desires impel you to be. If someone calls you on your behavior, or advises you to cultivate a little more awareness, pull up some phrases from common slogans as a shield, and finagle an argument that tries to show how their check and balance upon your acting out is really a violation of all the wonderful words that have been bandied about. That's what those words are there for, anyway, right? To give you some kind of defense in case someone actually makes some genuine and genuinely constructive critique?
We've forgotten, it seems, that the word "worth" is in the word "worship", and therefore fail to ask the soul-searching question, Am I worthy to worship? If that sounds like a strange question, one might want to sit down and think about it. It is, admittedly, a hard question. It does not cater to convenience or ease. It asks something of you. It doesn't come door to door to you to offer you blessings for free. The question asks you whether you are worthy of such worthy ancestors and worthy Gods.
Think about it. On a human level, would you walk into a club that was filled with the cream of the crop, the most excellent in the field, and really feel qualified to take up their time? Have you accomplished enough, have you improved yourself enough, have you dedicated yourself enough to the values around which that club is organized, to feel that anyone would even take your application seriously? Think that through, because chances are, you would feel a level of formidable intimidation to even consider entering an application, unless you were really, really good, and not just in your own mind, but as tested by circumstances and long experience. If you weren't intimidated, but also were not very good, you would show yourself to be a fool, and the club would want to have little to do with you. Under such circumstances, how much benefit ought you to expect from its members, practically speaking? If you have done little to advance their agenda, to enliven them, even to entertain them in terms of motifs and interests they find engaging, and in fact, from your achievements or lack thereof, are beneath their notice, how much help do you anticipate from this club? Think real pragmatically here.
Now consider that as a heathen you are making an application to join a club of ancestors whose deeds are sung around the world, and Gods whose great deeds speak for themselves in the majesties and beauties of the world itself. If you're not at least a little bit intimidated, not only have you not been paying attention, but you aren't even taking the matter seriously. And if you are not taking the matter seriously, and are therefore engaged in what amounts to little more than game-playing and social recitation, how do you expect beings of such worth to take you seriously at all?
Prayer ought be understood as a request or petition. If you were petitioning an individual or group to whose values you had openly scorned -- if not with words, then with deeds -- and were asking them for some kind of practical assistance in your life, beyond, say, the bare minimum of help that strangers might grant to one another out of a humanistic dedication to the larger community, how much practical assistance would you really expect to be rendered?
On a communal level, the question goes deeper. It is now no longer a question of whether you personally are worthy to participate in such worship, but when considering a potential member of your group (or even an already existing one), are they worthy of participating in such worship? Again, I know, a hard question, but then, convenience was never one of those bold words passed around in toasts. I beg practicality again. If you were part of a group that was petitioning a large organization or official, say, the President or the Congress or the United Nations, or even some international charity fund of some kind, and you knew that part of the process of considering your petition would involve scrutinizing the merit of the individuals who make up your group, as well as the overall integrity of the group itself, is the person next to you holding the horn of such merit that the petition will be either turned down or potentially accepted? Because now you're all in this together. You personally may be of excellent worth, but if you keep the company of low-lifes, in anything more than a charitable way, it is going to reflect, like it or not, upon you. Is this person an asset to the group's goal of attaining merit in the eyes of those it is petitioning? If you aren't considering these things, you're probably not taking the group very seriously, and it is probably nothing more than a social club, or perhaps even a drinking club, with a little Norse dressing just for flavor. (Or, within our larger generalization, whatever flavor the group professes as its particular style.) You ought not anticipate, therefore, for anyone, whether part of the larger public, or a part of the higher group you are petitioning, to take you seriously at all. Your credibility, and therefore effective organizational or social power, will be very low. If this is true at a human level, how much more true it is on higher levels.
I want to make it clear that when I encourage individuals and groups to engage in soul-searching regarding their own worthiness that perfection is not a relevant issue. Every single person has deficiencies which it is their responsibility to notice, address, and tend. The question of worth addresses whether you are actually doing your work in this regard, and the dedication with which you have thrown yourself into the work. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone, to differing degrees, is entitled to a little fun. The question of worth is not encouraging a false sense of shame. However, if there is shame inside, that is worthy to examine and address, because it just might be speaking to something. It might speak to something which needs development and work. If you've begun the path of undoing shame through good work, you have begun a path which leads to merit and worthy notice. You might slip. Life is full of failures and conflicts. The question is how quickly you pick yourself back up, address and correct your mistakes, and dedicate yourself back to the work. And ultimately, as well, there is a question of learning curve. Repeated and significant mistakes (there are many mistakes that are of little or no consequence), particularly if they involve injuries of some kind, will not help one's reputation.
And reputation here is geared towards worth. This is not about whether people "like" you or not. People's attractions and affinities are diverse and changeable, often to the point of fickleness, but what people authentically value, and I mean authentically value as demonstrated repeatedly in the concrete texture of their lives, tends to remain steady and weather petty flurries and little primate monkey-storms of "I like her", "I don't like him", etc. In fact, when someone demonstrates achievement in terms of things we actually value, we often are willing to set aside whether we personally like them or not, and they gain honor in our eyes for their authentic integrity despite their likability or lack thereof. Returning to our more practical examples, you might know on a personal level several people who are part of an exclusive club with selective membership dedicated to specific goals, and you might have a good relationship with them. Despite their personal liking for you, however, you are not going to become part of the group (if the group, that is, has any real integrity) unless you demonstrate some basic level of competence, and no one ought expect otherwise.
This is why I place so little stock in hereditary approaches to ethnicity, because mere ancestry does not establish worth in and of itself. Sure, we're all willing to extend the minimum loyalty required of a family member towards even the worst of our kin, but such are mere trifles. It is those family members who have actually made good of themselves, or at least have not proven themselves to be forces of mayhem, who win our long approval, and to whom we are willing to dedicate greater amounts of passion and assistance. And the Icelandic Sagas are full of instances of kinsmen refusing to render any palpable assistance to a kinsman who has proven to be a danger or of little worth. How much more so from kinsmen beyond the grave with their expanded perspective. The point here is, don't stand on the laurels of your ancestors unless you are willing to live the values behind the deeds which made them great. And if you stand on the laurels of ancestors who did no deeds and proved of little worth (or worse), what kinds of benefits do you expect to receive from such powerless people? Do you think you personally gain worth just because someone a long time ago who happens to be related to you did something of value? What are you going to do? That heritage is nothing in which to rest in complacency ; it is, actually, more of an onus upon you, for even greater deeds than average are expected. (And one more friendly critique of the volkish : there is absolutely no indication that any of our ancestors ever attempted to create any kind of social or legal form of copyright around their worship forms, let alone one that was based solely on genetic ties. Affinity and worth, as always, are the stronger factors, and while biological ancestry might create greater propensity towards affinity, it cannot establish worth without equal or greater achievements of merit. It stands to reason that there will be many with biological ancestry who have neither affinity nor worth, while on the other hand, there may be some, or even potentially many, who have little biological ancestry yet a great deal of affinity and even worth. Such matters are best left to Wyrd, rather than human politics.)
This doesn't mean we should go prying into other people's lives and appoint ourselves judge over them. It does mean we should encourage soul-searching, and should not shy away from appearing intimidating, and ought to, as discretely and appropriately as possible, in the spirit of genuinely constructive critique aimed at improvement, point out discrepancies between professed declarations and actual, glaring conduct.
Constructive critique and methods of conflict resolution are vital parts of keeping any group healthy. One of the first orders of business in this regard is to prioritize, which already brings us back to the basic issue of weighing the worth of things, and figure out what is important and what is not. What is petty, and what has weight? Once this determination has been made, and some sort of consensus established, it is then worthy to assess : to what side of this spectrum of pettiness versus importance does an individual or group dedicate most of their energies? If pettiness is a major concern, as reflected in actual interactions, then that which is actually important is probably being majorly neglected. In fact, if pettiness is a major and lasting concern, then what is actually happening --- in reality, not rhetoric --- is that they are declaring that what is petty is in fact of major importance to them. They have made their concrete choices. I know these are hard ways of looking at things, but we ought not expect that the Gods' scrutiny will be any less probing, intense, and thorough ; if anything, it will be more so.
Once we have determined what is petty and what is not, we can then attend to actual methods of addressing and resolving conflict. Are private matters kept at least somewhat private? Are public matters addressed in proper channels? Despite passions, has proper decorum been observed, which is to say has proper respect for the larger community, who is not a party to the special interests involved in the conflict, and is therefore deserving of sustained consideration and regard, been given?
How do you deal with your upsets? We all get upset, every single one of us, each in differing ways. We all may need arenas, forums, and venues in which to blow off steam and air out our frustrations. (And here we may ask, have you searched for an appropriate arena? If one does not exist, have you begun the work of creating that arena?) The question is, when you get upset, do your speech-and-deed-actions reflect those values you so boldly claim in circle? Carefully scrutinizing your actual life, when you get upset, are your actions characterized by honor, loyalty, kinship, wisdom, strength, and frith? Do they at least lean in that direction? If not, what are you doing about it? Do you need some help learning how to moderate your temper or find appropriate ways to express your frustrations and air out your conflicts? Seek out and find such help, discretely or openly as you see fit.
Remember, anyone can be a good guy, or so seem, when they're not upset, when nothing is going wrong, when everything is going their way, and conflict is absent. What you're really declaring (and, let's face it, aspiring towards, more than anything else) in circle is how you wish and will to be when the cards are down and things are difficult. How are you in conflict? How are you when upset? You don't have to be perfect. Even the Gods are not perfect, and they have broad tolerance and understanding for personal failings for all those who have demonstrated overall their merits and dedication to those values the Gods affirm as life-enhancing. If you're doing your work, you get a lot of credit, even if you slip up. If you're not doing your work, and have openly, with your actions if not your speech, declared that your life is dedicated to mayhem, do not expect a lot of help or understanding. It is your choices, and not your rhetoric, that make your alliances. (And believe that those alliances will be scrutinized by the Gods in great detail : attend to your loyalties and associations.)
To invoke a cliche (but a good one) : don't talk the talk, walk the walk. Then you can talk. If people aren't walking the walk, you might want to ask whether they are in fact just bowing down before cartoon characters, because these Gods defend very particular values, and seek them in those who seek benefits. If that's hard, I'm sorry, but so is life.
The theodish have an official called the thyle whose official business is to act as a devil's advocate at ritual, and call into question any claim which doesn't seem to match the actual deeds of those speaking. The thyle is, therefore, the bullshit detector. It seems obvious to me that we need a lot more bullshit detecting in heathenism, whether centered in a particular official, or more generally and discretely exercised, because if the ritual is to have meaning, words and actions must be woven together in authentic ways, and people must be dedicated to actually working on the struggles which they declare and for which they petition aid.
I don't personally care whether you like me or not. I mean, it might be nice, and I might enjoy it if you did like me. But your liking me or not is not going to seduce me away from my real values. And whether you like me or not, whether you enjoy what I say or not, one thing you will see is that over time, on the whole, I am both dedicated and persistent to fulfilling those values I declare. I, like everyone else, have a lot of work to do, but I take that work very seriously. And I do in fact anticipate that over time that dedication will prove of value to those who authentically share the same values, regardless of their personal feelings of like or dislike towards me. That is, after all, what worth is all about, because it allows us to rise above the petty monkey politics. If the latter is all you wish, hey, why did Ask and Embla ever come down from the trees? Are you going to waste or flourish those soulful gifts the Gods once gave?
O Northern Neptune, my nuptials' witness, many waved-hand benediction priest, have seen and given declaration to pronounce wife, and wives, and ebb-pulled back bride. I see her laced veil on thy curls. O, great Father of the Restive Deep! Longing is too long held in this sorrow-blistered breast! I wish not to yearn for feasts, but feast! Feed me, Fishmonger Proud! Feed these unfed lips with such bounty as thy lusty sea-loins know! Sate me, O Sea O'ersurfeit! Let me taste the satisfaction of fullness, and I will fullest praise thy well-to-be-praised waves! Rhythm of river's deepest sources, basin of the very bosom of seas, you ought know well these lips from praises seldom falter! but fiercely seek the praise a wild heart might give! Give me then love as might pregnant lie within thy whale-homed belly of the brine! The dreams of eat, however vivid, feed not my fervent-seeking spirit. Grant, O Grandfather of the Gem, such issue Love create.
It is for lack of praise the city falters. It is for lack of praise hearts do weary. When folk together do not come to praise, and therefore raise the holy powers, all the land is vanish'd of its magic so far as the tribe's luck, which ebbing, a mere minimum becomes and all effort is strongest plied to vain, with waste of greater remnant than is spent. It is for laughing at these truths the land becomes a net of tombs. We are thieves if we silence what praise is due, and thankgivings ought be daily. Neglected cathedrals of sublime might, shaped by living essences, surround us, and they sustain the living power, sole to ask that we, our poet power, art, creation, render back to them. And if you laugh, the world laughs back sterility. And if you mock, the world mocks back its might supreme against your insect-taunts and squeaks. Praise, pay up, paying the e'er-increasing debt racked up by life imbibing up -- pay up, and praise.
...Upp líta skalattu í orrostu ; gjalti glíkir verða gumna synir ;síðr þitt um heilli halir (Havamal 129), "Thou shalt not look up in battle --- the sons of men become like terrified swine --- lest you, hero, become bewitched." In the first Merseburg Charm, the idisi or disir of those in battle (who would be valkyries) are said, suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun, "some fasten fetters, some hamper the army". This was a form of bewitching. If they looked up in battle, then their concentration would be broken, and they could become subject to the disir of the opposing side, who floated over the battle field.
This is a supernatural explanation for a set of proverbial truths : Keep your eye on the ball. Focus on what you are doing. It is when you take your focus off what should be holding your attention that you may be bewitched.
When you're in a battle, fight the battle. Keep your eyes ahead of you and about you, but don't look up and into the distance. If you don't remain focused, the anxiety may get the best of you and you may panic. Stay with the task at hand.
Which brings us to the following meditation : No prayers for what lies outside the battle.
What is the battle in your life right now? There will be a greater battle, which is the larger strategic realm you are trying to conquer, but there will be a smaller battle, which is the tactical terrain that right now you need to get through and overcome in order to be able to address the larger realm. We will call the first your war, and the second your battle.
Identify your battle, and direct all your prayers towards the completion of that battle. If you have correctly identified your battle, that struggle which is of greatest concern for you to overcome in your life right now, you should be offering up no other prayers but to accomplish this task.
Any "looking up" from this battle, any prayers directed to the heavens and to the Gods that are irrelevant to this struggle, will only serve to distract you, and quite likely to disorient you, and possibly to such a degree that you may lose your bearings and begin to panic.
It is when you lose sight of your primary goals that you may become bewitched or spell-bound, panicked but unable to move. You may find yourself paralyzed, stuck in position, because you're no longer focused on what you actually need to get done.
The Gods know what your battles are, and what your war is. They particularly know this because you have declared as such in sumble. In so doing, you have as good as asked them to further you in this task. And in doing this, you have as good as asked them to consider any other requests to be irrelevant, and they will follow suit. In other words, as a general guideline (which the Gods may set aside at will as they will), the Gods will neither hear nor heed those prayers which ask for things that lie outside the scope of the field of battle.
That's really something to contemplate, because it answers, or at least addresses and begins to answer, the question of why all prayers are not answered. If you haven't unlocked the power that belongs to you yet is locked down within that challenge you have yet to overcome, then you are approaching your life from a more helpless place than you need to be, and the Gods want to encourage your empowerment. Therefore, stop running around like a pig run scared, face your fears, and charge back into that battle which is calling you, the one where you stand some chance of success, and where winning will bring you greater power. If you aren't doing that, what are you asking for from the Gods? Trinkets? Amusements? Trivia? Let alone that which, beknownst or unbeknownst to you, out and out contradicts the goals of one's chosen battle? Will even prayers brook contradiction? Think deeply on this. If you ask for that which negates that for which you more strongly ask, what in fact are you asking? If your battle is to find health in your life, for example, and yet you ask for someone unhealthy for whom you pine, how will that affect your battle? Is that a prayer it would even be compassionate for the Gods to grant?
On the other hand, if there was indeed something small which you needed which would actually further you in the struggle, that could be a rational prayer, and one which might be answered. A man pausing in the heat of battle might just need a cold can of Coke, no matter how trivial that might sound, to get back into the thick of it. It's likely the Gods would not begrudge that one. And, once the battle was fought, the Gods certainly wouldn't begrudge a genuine request for shore-leave. But where would you be running off to before the fight is won? First things first.
Of course, if you don't know what your battle is, then your battle is to find your battle. Meditation, counsel, rune-casting, as well as a rational examination of one's greatest goals and obstacles in life ought to begin to make this clear. This battle to find one's battle may well be called a battle, because it is often not easy figuring out just what the struggle is. Once you've assembled the strategic picture, you want to ask yourself, "What struggle is winnable if I really apply myself to it, and which will bring me greater strength to fight the further battles I will need to win to reach my larger strategic goals?". Don't start with what's untackleable. Don't start with a battle which you could win, but which will leave you so weakened or disheartened that it will sap your strength for the battles ahead. Start small and choose appropriate battles which will slowly but steadily build your morale. Once you've done this, and identified the proper tactical field, apply yourself to it full steam ahead, and don't stop, appropriate rest periods aside, until you've reached your goal. And don't be surprised if lots of little things your easily-distracted mind thinks you want are denied you by the Gods if they are not related to the attainment of your goal, and the overcoming of your frustration. If you want to get an idea of what your needs rather than your greeds are, tally up what is absolutely necessary to tackle the issue ; anything beyond that is greed. Keep tackling the issue. You know what the issue is that you need to be tackling. It's most likely the one that you've been avoiding.
The Gods aren't there to collude in your avoidance. They're there to encourage you to step up to the plate. And if that plate is too intimidating as yet, then get yourself into some kind of training program which will prepare you baby-step by baby-step to get to that plate, because even such pre-plate training is a way of stepping up to the plate. Just do it.
You're welcome to stay in frustration as long as you wish. If you want to stay spell-bound, and therefore in the power of ill, that is your choice. Don't blame the Gods when things aren't going the way you like. The enchantments people most often fall into are those of Gullveig -- greed, angst, envy -- and Loki -- fraud, forswearing, slander, and strife-provoking. These are the ills to which we humans -- all-too-human as Nietzsche said -- are most often subject. Envy is one in particular that assails us when we are trying to be successful and fighting our battle, and it is particularly indicated by the Havamal verse in conjunction with its matching Merseburg Charm, because it is when we look up and behold the dis of another that we may become bewitched. The dis of another is the one guiding their fate (not yours), whether it is their personal or their family fate. It belongs to them. It is a property of their individual self or family. How often do we look up from the struggle that faces us and wish we were someone else, wish we had someone else's luck, wish we had the rewards or talents someone else had? Such vain wishes and empty fantasizings do not gain us one iota of strength to carry on the battle, and in fact, just drain and diminish our morale. It is therefore a vicious cycle which keeps us in frustration. An entire army may be hampered with such petty attempts to escape the matter at hand. A true prayer is about getting out of this rut.
A prayer for luck, therefore, ought to center on, "Give me the strength and opportunity to overcome the challenges I face at this stage in my development," because in actuality, it is often the blockages and knots we are tied in, and the ways we avoid challenges, that get in the way of our success. Human beings have multiple ways of avoiding their problems and refusing to face them head-on. Wishing for luck under these circumstances is asking for the problem to be solved without solving the problem. It is a logical contradiction. It is asking, "Exempt me from having to do the difficult and psychologically troubling work of working through this difficulty, and just give me the rewards." But rewards are the natural consequences of successfully working through the challenges unfolding out of one's unique developmental stage in life. Our "prayer", such as it is, is asking the Gods to do something that is inherently unhealthy (not to mention going against nature). It is asking them to collude in our disempowerment, and to enable us to remain stunted in our growth. It is asking them to foster dependence rather than healthy independence. And because they are strong, loving, health-and-whole-wishing Gods, they're not going to do that.
The Gods have made us free. We are therefore free to fuck up. We are free to stay locked in an unresolved situation as long we choose. We can remain in perpetual misery so long as we refuse to face up to our challenges. (But this is, as the Havamal verse implies, viewed as a form of ill enchantment.) Or we can get really honest and say, "I'm having a really hard time overcoming this difficulty, and I don't even know how to go about it. Can you send me some help, or direct me in the right way, that will increase my resources, and give me more effective tools for tackling this situation independently and successfully?". That's a prayer to which the ears of the Gods are especially attuned.
all translations copyright 2010 Siegfried Goodfellow
...Upp líta skalattu í orrostu ; gjalti glíkir verða gumna synir ;síðr þitt um heilli halir (Havamal 129), "Thou shalt not look up in battle --- the sons of men become like terrified swine --- lest you, hero, become bewitched." In the first Merseburg Charm, the idisi or disir of those in battle (who would be valkyries) are said, suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun, "some fasten fetters, some hamper the army". This was a form of bewitching. If they looked up in battle, then their concentration would be broken, and they could become subject to the disir of the opposing side, who floated over the battle field.
This is a supernatural explanation for a set of proverbial truths : Keep your eye on the ball. Focus on what you are doing. It is when you take your focus off what should be holding your attention that you may be bewitched.
When you're in a battle, fight the battle. Keep your eyes ahead of you and about you, but don't look up and into the distance. If you don't remain focused, the anxiety may get the best of you and you may panic. Stay with the task at hand.
Which brings us to the following meditation : No prayers for what lies outside the battle.
What is the battle in your life right now? There will be a greater battle, which is the larger strategic realm you are trying to conquer, but there will be a smaller battle, which is the tactical terrain that right now you need to get through and overcome in order to be able to address the larger realm. We will call the first your war, and the second your battle.
Identify your battle, and direct all your prayers towards the completion of that battle. If you have correctly identified your battle, that struggle which is of greatest concern for you to overcome in your life right now, you should be offering up no other prayers but to accomplish this task.
Any "looking up" from this battle, any prayers directed to the heavens and to the Gods that are irrelevant to this struggle, will only serve to distract you, and quite likely to disorient you, and possibly to such a degree that you may lose your bearings and begin to panic.
It is when you lose sight of your primary goals that you may become bewitched or spell-bound, panicked but unable to move. You may find yourself paralyzed, stuck in position, because you're no longer focused on what you actually need to get done.
The Gods know what your battles are, and what your war is. They particularly know this because you have declared as such in sumble. In so doing, you have as good as asked them to further you in this task. And in doing this, you have as good as asked them to consider any other requests to be irrelevant, and they will follow suit. In other words, as a general guideline (which the Gods may set aside at will as they will), the Gods will neither hear nor heed those prayers which ask for things that lie outside the scope of the field of battle.
That's really something to contemplate, because it answers, or at least addresses and begins to answer, the question of why all prayers are not answered. If you haven't unlocked the power that belongs to you yet is locked down within that challenge you have yet to overcome, then you are approaching your life from a more helpless place than you need to be, and the Gods want to encourage your empowerment. Therefore, stop running around like a pig run scared, face your fears, and charge back into that battle which is calling you, the one where you stand some chance of success, and where winning will bring you greater power. If you aren't doing that, what are you asking for from the Gods? Trinkets? Amusements? Trivia?
On the other hand, if there was indeed something small which you needed which would actually further you in the struggle, that could be a rational prayer, and one which might be answered. A man pausing in the heat of battle might just need a cold can of Coke, no matter how trivial that might sound, to get back into the thick of it. It's likely the Gods would not begrudge that one. And, once the battle was fought, the Gods certainly wouldn't begrudge a genuine request for shore-leave. But where would you be running off to before the fight is won? First things first.
Of course, if you don't know what your battle is, then your battle is to find your battle. Meditation, counsel, rune-casting, as well as a rational examination of one's greatest goals and obstacles in life ought to begin to make this clear. This battle to find one's battle may well be called a battle, because it is often not easy figuring out just what the struggle is. Once you've assembled the strategic picture, you want to ask yourself, "What struggle is winnable if I really apply myself to it, and which will bring me greater strength to fight the further battles I will need to win to reach my larger strategic goals?". Don't start with what's untackleable. Don't start with a battle which you could win, but which will leave you so weakened or disheartened that it will sap your strength for the battles ahead. Start small and choose appropriate battles which will slowly but steadily build your morale. Once you've done this, and identified the proper tactical field, apply yourself to it full steam ahead, and don't stop, appropriate rest periods aside, until you've reached your goal. And don't be surprised if lots of little things your easily-distracted mind thinks you want are denied you by the Gods if they are not related to the attainment of your goal, and the overcoming of your frustration. If you want to get an idea of what your needs rather than your greeds are, tally up what is absolutely necessary to tackle the issue ; anything beyond that is greed. Keep tackling the issue. You know what the issue is that you need to be tackling. It's most likely the one that you've been avoiding.
The Gods aren't there to collude in your avoidance. They're there to encourage you to step up to the plate. And if that plate is too intimidating as yet, then get yourself into some kind of training program which will prepare you baby-step by baby-step to get to that plate, because even such pre-plate training is a way of stepping up to the plate. Just do it.
You're welcome to stay in frustration as long as you wish. If you want to stay spell-bound, and therefore in the power of ill, that is your choice. Don't blame the Gods when things aren't going the way you like. The enchantments people most often fall into are those of Gullveig -- greed, angst, envy -- and Loki -- fraud, forswearing, slander, and strife-provoking. These are the ills to which we humans -- all-too-human as Nietzsche said -- are most often subject. Envy is one in particular that assails us when we are trying to be successful and fighting our battle, and it is particularly indicated by the Havamal verse in conjunction with its matching Merseburg Charm, because it is when we look up and behold the dis of another that we may become bewitched. The dis of another is the one guiding their fate (not yours), whether it is their personal or their family fate. It belongs to them. It is a property of their individual self or family. How often do we look up from the struggle that faces us and wish we were someone else, wish we had someone else's luck, wish we had the rewards or talents someone else had? Such vain wishes and empty fantasizings do not gain us one iota of strength to carry on the battle, and in fact, just drain and diminish our morale. It is therefore a vicious cycle which keeps us in frustration. An entire army may be hampered with such petty attempts to escape the matter at hand. A true prayer is about getting out of this rut.
A prayer for luck, therefore, ought to center on, "Give me the strength and opportunity to overcome the challenges I face at this stage in my development," because in actuality, it is often the blockages and knots we are tied in, and the ways we avoid challenges, that get in the way of our success. Human beings have multiple ways of avoiding their problems and refusing to face them head-on. Wishing for luck under these circumstances is asking for the problem to be solved without solving the problem. It is a logical contradiction. It is asking, "Exempt me from having to do the difficult and psychologically troubling work of working through this difficulty, and just give me the rewards." But rewards are the natural consequences of successfully working through the challenges unfolding out of one's unique developmental stage in life. Our "prayer", such as it is, is asking the Gods to do something that is inherently unhealthy (not to mention going against nature). It is asking them to collude in our disempowerment, and to enable us to remain stunted in our growth. It is asking them to foster dependence rather than healthy independence. And because they are strong, loving, health-and-whole-wishing Gods, they're not going to do that.
The Gods have made us free. We are therefore free to fuck up. We are free to stay locked in an unresolved situation as long we choose. We can remain in perpetual misery so long as we refuse to face up to our challenges. (But this is, as the Havamal verse implies, viewed as a form of ill enchantment.) Or we can get really honest and say, "I'm having a really hard time overcoming this difficulty, and I don't even know how to go about it. Can you send me some help, or direct me in the right way, that will increase my resources, and give me more effective tools for tackling this situation independently and successfully?". That's a prayer to which the ears of the Gods are especially attuned.
all translations copyright 2010 Siegfried Goodfellow
Can you create something eternal? Can you summon an archetype from the nether?
Indeed, you can.
The Gods imbued us with their gifts. We have ond, we have odr. We have the awesome power.
I'm listening to Duran-Duran's The Chauffeur. I cannot imagine a time when this sparkling beauty did not exist.
And yet it did not pre-exist the 1980s.
This stunning, elfish gorgeousness, this must-be?
This must-be might not have been.
If someone hadn't set out to create.
This is a piece of beauty this world never knew.
It is a real bringing in of something from nothing. It is a birth, a creation, a gift.
The absolutely real opportunity to adorn this world with beauty, with grace, with love, with inspiration, with strength, with courage exists for each of us.
You may bring jewels here that never were before, yet after they are brought, are as if they could not never have been.
What an incredibly rich chance! Grab it! Grasp it! There are subtle glimmering beauties unseen surrounding you in the ether. Reach out to them, seek them out, touch them, take them in, and find some way to give them birth and form in this world.
For the world is ugly, remember, not only because of the presence of evil, but the failure of the creative to fully develop themselves and give forth their gifts. In fact, it might be said that the only real way that evil prospers is through the sabotage and muting of that very creative potential.
If you fail to wyrd, the whole world will be robbed of how you might have enlivened its deadening normality into something sparkling and alive. Such life smuggled into this world through gifts on loan from the Gods is something that makes a difference and ensures that there is still inspiration to go on, so that this world becomes a place of soul-making, and not of soul-breaking.
It doesn't happen under conditions of stagnation. This is why Odin stirs up with wod. A little turbulence is needed in lives that get too complacent, for they may lose their opportunity in their slumber.
Every one of you has something you may create -- from nothing, pure magic developed into art and craft -- that will bless this world, and smuggle beneath the giant's notice some sustaining beauty.
Even the smallest authentic beauty can make a difference in a life, or several lives.
Remember, what enlivens us now might not have been.
In fact, very easily might not have been.
Shakespeare's works were not inevitable. Lucas might not have made Star Wars. Gene Roddenberry could have stayed in the LAPD. Snorri could have left the writing down of the myths to someone else -- or no one.
It might be frightening, and is, to imagine a world where Shakespeare might not have been at all, nor any of the other crafters of beauty who make this often hard-edged life just a bit more bearable, but it is to restore the past to the fragility and fluidity of its contingency, its might-have-been-elsewise, had a choice been made different here or there. But that very uncertainty, the frightfulness of that slippery reality, is the excitement of this opportunity here in the present.
What do the Gods have in store for you? What potentials did your ancestors work hard to have the Norns weave in to your fatelines? What beauties wait to birth through you? This is a religious question.
Beauty is part of the battle! When you make yourself an incarnation for the Gods' creations, and allow that holiness to pass through you and bless all who will have it, you have become a potent weapon in the Gods' hands against the Giants!
Don't think so? Ever noticed how easy it is to destroy, and how difficult it is to create? How casual comes criticism and slander, and how steep the road to actually build and get something off the ground? Tripfalls are laid everywhere, it's painting in a minefield, dancing on a seismic fault. Many will give up this battle. Will you? You're going to have to work hard to bring this to fruition. Who stands in your way? What stands in your way? However formidable, intimidating, gargantuan they seem, do you remember that what blessing comes to be created through you comes from the Holy Gods?? Now, are you going to let that Giant win? I mean, maybe you're not going to win, it's never certain, and sometimes you don't know how you're going to get out of this mess or how you'll ever push through, but are you going to let that smelly, messy, disgusting lump of stupid Giant-flesh stand in the way of that which the Gods would intend? Come on, get back up on your feet, go back to the workshop, stare at the unfinished blueprints again, and roll up your sleeves.
See, we've got good work. It's good work. We don't know precisely the outcome, we only know that if Shakespeare had never sat down at his workshop and began pondering lines for his actors, well, literature, which is what feeds the soul in a difficult world, would now be tremendously impoverished. And so he stole back from that nothing which is the shrouding of the Giants' absconding to bring us treasures. So we get back into the workshop and sit down to our good work.
The knee-jerk anti-Christianity has gone too far in paganism, because paganism has lost its own image in the mirror. We've allowed Christianity to claim as its own much of what was originally ours. And I intend to correct it. By pissing off all the right people. So I'm going to speak in a way that may jar you at first, and I hope it does, because then that will make you think. Here goes :
Basically, heathenism is like a super-form of Christianity, with fists, with ferocity, with will, that will gangbust Paradise, by smashing all the monsters who stand in the way barring the gate.
We are real serious about confronting and overpowering evil.
The evil can cringe and cower behind the doctrines of forgiveness they hope will shelter their weaseling.
We see through such bullshit. The deeds speak for themselves. If there is anything redeemable, the Gods will know.
This is the battle we are fighting. There are forces for Good in this world, that sustain its holiness and numinosity. And then there are forces intent on tearing it down, on corrupting and perverting everything they touch. And both forces are very real.
And it is no joke to us which side you choose to support.
Oh, we don't really care what you call it. We're polytheists, after all.
But your deeds will speak. However you dress the symbolic ceremonial you offer on the altar, your deeds will speak loud and clear the true values you chose.
And if you are on the side of Fenris, Jormungand, Leikn, Loki, Angrboda, and all their kin --- and I mean this here in a real sense, not costume-play and little pseudo-Jungian pretend-games -- you are our enemy and you are going to lose.
That's not a promise from us.
It's a promise from our Gods.
No, unless you are really corrupted, your fate doesn't hang in the balance on every little mistake you might make. Get real. The Gods are not tyrants. The tyrants are the jotunn-forces who too often hold the day in this age. It's the overall texture of your life as measured and averaged over time through your deeds. We all make mistakes. We're all imperfect. The Gods know that.
But what do you do with your mistakes? Do you make good on them? Do you pick up and put your nose to the grind to make good on them and restore what holiness may have been lost? Anyone on a team might falter. Which team are you on?
Because of Christianity, this seems to have become a taboo topic, some element of our religion of which we should be embarassed.
Au contraire! We have no problem with the "evil" word. It's real, it's significant, and it is what we are battling. If that sounds too "primitive" to your urban ears, guess what? You've become corrupted by the pseudo-sophistication of those urban snares our ancestors called tombs. Odin advises us to be satisfied with a moderate amount of sophistication, not because he doesn't encourage endless development, but precisely because some kinds of sophistication forget their base, and lose touch with their roots. We are barbarians, after all. We're meddling-sophisticated, well-cultivated, benevolent, whole-loving, and holiness-serving barbarians, but we are not overrefined slaves who have lost their sense of the stakes, and what really matters. Once you've given up in life, and given your all over to the world-logic of empire, many things like "evil" begin to sound just a little too "simplistic" and "primitive" to your ears.
Wake up. There is evil in the world. It stems from all kinds of sources. But it is real, and it is to be fought.
"But -- but -- that's dualistic!"
You're damn right. And something to be proud of. Because it matches common perception. Look around. There's some things in this world that ain't right. Trust your gut and your heart. Not all the sophistication in the world is going to convince you (unless you are the thrallish type and easily duped) that everything's ok and ought to be affirmed. Hell no!
Some are too caught up in Nietzsche's idea that this world must be affirmed, as he tried to fight what he saw as the "anti-worldly" attitude of Christianity.
Hang on, wait a minute. He accepted the idea that there is "a" world. Where is this world? I see many different things. And some of them are good. And some are bad. Am I to affirm what is bad in the name of some synthetic "world" that is but a sloppy synthesis carelessly borrowed in opposition from some conception of Christianity? We need not be world-affirming because there is no "world". There is a domain the Gods have blessed and shaped, and that is called Midgard. And then there is another place, barren, and fit only for misshapen creatures, and that is called Jotunheim. And they are not, or should not be, the same place. This globe, however, that is the beautiful birthright estate of our Beloved Mother Earth, is at present hodge-podge criss-crossed with a shifting quilt pattern of Midgard and Jotunheim, two different domains, requiring precisely opposite allegiances from us.
Let's clarify, making sure we aren't being narcissistic here. We aren't judging the world by our standards. There's many different creatures living on this planet, and so we have to live in a kind of dynamic compromise and set of implicit treaties that allow ecosystems to grow, thrive, and sustain themselves. It is Mother Earth's estate, after all, and she is fond of her many creatures. (Although as our cousins the Indo-Iranians indicate, however, some arch-heathens did believe that some segment of the creatures had already been subject to deformation and corruption, and had lost some of their original wholeness. Tics come to mind!) But evil is precisely what has broken and will continue to break those implicit treaties, stretching all excess out of proportion, holding sacred nothing of Mother Earth (nor any of the other holy Gods, for that matter).
There is a whole hell of a lot that is still holy even in this very-corrupted world. Go into the center of a forest grove. Go down to the ocean by the moonlight. These will show you glimpses of how things might be, how they were intended, the beauty, sublimity, balance, and sense of fitting in to all this. But there is still much, unfortunately, in what is erroneously called "the" world, that is not holy.
"But wait ... wait ... what you're saying doesn't quite fit in with my modern understanding of ecological environmentalism or skeptical atheism."
Yah. Your ancestors didn't fashion this to just perfectly mold with whatever modern idea you might come up with. And you might have to decide. Is it more important to you to make sure you're modern, or to attune to the spirituality of your ancestors?
See, there's a distinctly modern bias towards entrenched cynicism and rank materialism which sees all spirituality as little else but "metaphor" with no real force behind it. And if it's all nothing but metaphor, like a currency with nothing to back it up, then it's really all pretend-games anyway, and you can do whatever you want. But that's not the spirituality of our ancestors.
We're serious about Golden Age politics of spirituality. This is all culminating in the Return of Baldur, and you'd better not forget it. We are not foot soldiers in the army of the jaded who blush at speaking openly about the "Golden Age", because it seems so, well, yesterday and unrealistic. Fuck your realism ; it's nothing but a slavish mentality bowing down to the jotnar of this world, and we will fuck up that reality in the name of something holy and good that is not as deadeningly unimaginative as you are.
Does that seem too "goody-good" for your jaded modern ears? Motherfucker, we've got hammers, we've got axes, we mean business about this Good stuff.
Now we know that in the Axe Age we are not going to get to live Golden Age conditions, but we do not for that reason give up. No, we develop every attainable good that can be attained so that the conditions will be right in the ground for the Return. And we don't live our whole lives as warriors. Much of the time we are farmers, just trying to make a living, put some food on the table, and find some time after all that is done to enjoy ourselves. And yep, we make some mistakes in the process. How does it end up in the wash? Other times we are wizards, artists, poets, creating beauty directly from the mind, summoning up intelligence, beautifying a world which has already grown too ugly. (There I go myself calling this a "world". Let's just use the Axe-Age name for it : Valland, the Land of Many Battles, the arena of struggle between Midgard and Jotunheim.) Just because we will or may not in this lifetime see Golden Age conditions does not mean we stop believing in them. No, we are guardians of that which shall return, in whatever small snippet of holiness we have the honor to ward and cherish. We are holders of potent seeds. And it is that Golden Age we live towards.
"But ... but ... isn't that just the postponing of true living Nietzsche was talking about?"
Come on, who "truly lives" in Valland under these conditions? We are in unspeakable struggle. Forces vie for the very face of the planet. Pretending like there is no struggle under such circumstances is mere foolishness. But it does not negate the struggle that we live towards the Victory.
For in living towards the Victory, we taste some of that victory in our lives today. We are ourselves itself extended out and backwards dispersed through time, awaiting its own gathering. And that is worthwhile and meaningful. In whatever little ways we can gather victories in our lifetimes, and it can often be meagre under conditions where the entire playing board has been tilted all to hell, we are tasting and gathering victories to culminate in that final victory.
This structure, see, isn't original or exclusive to Christianity. It is, if anything Zoroastrian, which is but a reformed version of Iranian Indo-European heathenism. And Zoroaster (or whomever, utilizing a traditional figure) only had to reform the religion when corruption had raised itself to such a level that it had begun penetrating into the priesthoods such that worship of truly evil forces had begun to spread itself on a cultic level. (Worship Fenris and other so-called "Rokkr", anyone?) Zoroastrianism is still full-flung polytheism. All the Gods under the Chief God fight the Iranian concept of the jotnar and thurs.
Don't begin by looking at Christianity and then saying, we need to mold our thing in the opposite direction, because Christianity preserves through various pick-ups along the way, a good deal of the Indo-European dualistic structure. It is in nuances that we must pick our battles with Christianity. It is in the fine details of the battle-lines, and the acceptable tactics. And when we realize how close we are to aspects of Christianity, and yet so far, then we will become a real threat, because then we will be close enough to be a heresy, and then we will turn and say, no, brother, you are the real heresy, but you are welcome back in the fold if you'll put aside your exclusivism and practice some tolerance. We promise you we won't make you worship demons. (We're fighting them!) So long as you don't have the stupidity and discourtesy to insinuate that our Gods are demons! Learn a little discrimination. And then perhaps we can bring our little prodigal brother back into the family.
LaSara Firefox says, "Suffering is inexhaustible; I vow to extinguish it."
That is a warrior's vow. It is full of the immeasurably benevolent defiance that characterizes our Gods.
And it is precisely what the Gods intend and are planning.
The idea that suffering is inevitable is a crock of shit, and our Gods intend to smash that crock to smithereens.
Some people think Ragnarok is some sort of "grim" and "dark" idea.
Bullocks. It's going to bring Baldur back to rule. Do you even get what that means? Baldur is going to rule!
And all of you who have given your hearts and souls over to the deceit and lying and cheating and slander of Loki, and the greed, fear-mongering, and raging hatred of Angrboda will be manure for the World-Tree.
See, 'cuz here in Norse religion, we don't accept that the monstrous is inevitable. Oh, challenge we like. There'll still be challenge in Baldur's world. But it won't be the kind that crushes you. The kind that crushes the spirit out of you, your kin, and your people. No, it will be the kind that keeps pulling you on to improve and discover everything you and the universe can be.
We're not about consolation, which is something both Christianity and lazy atheism offer : hey, suffering is inevitable, so let us comfort you.
Fuck that!
Is that what Thor's hammer stands for? No way!
It means, Even giants can be smashed!
So why don't the Gods just wrap the whole thing up now?
Well, evil has had time to seed itself and proliferate, and build its forces. So the Gods are building their forces. You see, they play to win.
Ragnarok is not a tragedy.
It is a comedy.
In the old sense of the word. It ends in victory.
But there are other reasons. The Ahriman-forces of Loki and his kin must be allowed to fully develop, so that when he serves his fated role and leads them to the battlefield, they will all be present, where they can then all be defeated, and the world will be rid of all such ill.
And don't try to shove my ears full of bullshit like the "need" for there to be "both" good and evil in order for there to be balance in the universe. Grow up. Don't you understand that ill is precisely the taking of events outside the balance? Good is the balance. Evil is that which constantly sabotages that balance, and thus takes things outside their wholeness.
There is yet another reason to not bring the whole thing to culmination just yet. That is love. The love the Gods have for this world, as messed-up as it is. There is still beauty to be had, and so long as the Midgard Serpent hasn't yet squeezed out every last opportunity for beauty, there are still treasures to be generated. "For the Gods so loved the world, they held back the final battle to allow it to ripen...".
There is a time in the struggle between Ahriman and Ohrmazd when Ahriman is given the upper hand, to spoil all he can. That is only part of the plan to gather up all into one head so that head can be guillotined.
In the meantime, we honor and venerate all that is still sacred, and has not yet been spoiled (or fully spoiled).
Think not that suffering, however overwhelming, is inevitable. Be a warrior. Vow to extinguish it.
That is, I think, akin to what the Einherjar swear.
And in the end, we will be victorious over all the perversions and corruptions of strength, talent, love, and joy that at present are so thick they often choke them out. And we will be victorious through strength, wisdom, and ferocity towards evil.
And if that sounds too Christian to your ears, tough shit.
It's actually a warrior's position. Are you fighting this war just to fight, or to win?
Beneath a pinioned rock that thrice was cut I lay embound in iron chains congeal'd from visc'ra torn with teeth from one to son another mine, while I was forc'd to watch. To watch! To watch! The flesh was ripped apart! No tears I wept to give my captors gain. Yet I, in sooth, on head of mine : full guilt. Full guilt! My captor's sons I set at throat with dart so venom'd, bane was quickened sure! The greatest God who white and lily stepped innocent son, celestial boon and blessing on ever, ay, and always earth this age. This age, golden age, any age to come, I killed. Not my own hand : his dear belov'd brother strong I trick'd and gave the arrow just dipp'd in mistl'toes witch-enchanted brews. Unknownst he took so trusting me and shot -- he shot! oh never such a shot was seen! To melt the golden smiles down-dripp'd regal blood! and earth touching, sprout St. John's Wort bloom'd, while doom'd most blessed loved God of old. The tears spat out ocean froth like curses. Cries so terrible and pitiful from Gods! My spite and vengeance spoiled then by tears mine own. And laughter, laughter under palm of hand while slink'd I far, far thence with quickened haste. Oh, time hath its tricks, and I, over time, in my own trap -- a net I made -- was caught! Then caught and bound was struggling brought 'neath ground. Here lies the locked one : see? These chains, my sons' own guts, his very flesh now father-binds! The deep and darkened ir'ny'f anger'd Gods! So say they all in sooth doth hate me full. All life! All living things that took their breath from bless'd, beloved, broad-hearted Baldur. He's dead. I'm dead. We're all all dead-deadened by hand of mine, by mind of mine now curs'd! When earth you feel ashak'd and tremble, roar, you feel, O Embla's kin, my raging wail-remorse! Shall I, so craz'd, at end of times, be burst and wolf-army leading lead the hopeless fight against the Gods in wild vengeance slaughter? So fateful, I, necessity-endrawn, might self give sacrifice to end my kin's long and wretched ogre mayhem, which landeth even blessed me -- (by Gods) -- in chains. And even then upon my Heimdall deathbed, with thought of me a secret agent sly, whose own deceit I trick flatter meself, will I, oh then, but catch a single wink of single eye, whose pawn I once again be prov'd to be, by master of the tricks that I, apprentice claim to folly be? These maddened thoughts taunt in the cold venom. And I, a partner once, of espionage, be pawn-partnered once again by he who wizard-wonder old man love once was? Sigyn, bowl me from serpent's poison'd thoughts.
O Sol, sing not of Surt whose blackened hands burnt by sun's fires, blackened the beauty of dawning day. Whatever hands may beauty craft do crumble when those hands the same do crush the light. Rise from falling fall, be fierce, O Sol, and sear the soiled hands of Surt again, that all may feel your blazing bright, and awe, in imitation, striding tall with fiery strength.
Her light is like the thunder, thrown off like brazen brands of burning spears which pierce the neb'lous shields of wicked spirits. This light is for all, that none need fear the fiends. This torch She, the sun-carrying one carries bright as charioteer 'cross the daily heavens. And she is wrath turned regal each burning moment on beam on blessed beam of lawful light disperse the night of evil shadow. She rides the reins as fire's valkyrie. Heaven's warrior, sky's flame's maiden, more-than-formidable queen of bluest arches. Her many fingers fiercely point the paved path of good, yet ill she all incinerates, merciless, to those who mercy lack. The light of her holy warmth is not to be gainsayed. She is a Lady, She is a Soldier of the searing pyre whose blazes march the paths of the pure. Feel her phoenix-flame and shudder, shake off all remaining dust of ill and worship. Worship fire of heaven's seas' charging maiden, Mani's kin. She is the day's angry benevolence, the evening's artist in scarlets. Make way for the golden magma-crowned Queen of Day. Hail Sol!
Devotion's a flame offered ash to vapor. The cold black echoes with twinkled torches.
I give ode to the Wod-Master's wild camelot-crew who round-table roar from heaven's meadows.
The long strip of milk dappled pointillist on onyx, the plank for gold-toothed guardian of warriors, once in world wrapped up a babe, swans pulling upon shield lifted grain to king-teach the craftless.
This dancing tongue erupts from hearth's holy mouth, calligraphs of rainbow leap, and seers see the deepest mysteries within.
What is offered to the log's life smoked and swallowed by the sun's small spark received, the star-scaffold's ward carries over. Thus those desperate whispers over recels heard in the halls of the high.
Stretched out o'er that long band 'tween, the ether is formed by prayers, and ram-horned holy one, with wish, shall offer all the echoes of the ancients. Hear prayer pooling up in ripples. Pray.
Let the axes slip, I have already fallen upon the four winds, and thrown myself onto the air, surfed the waves of roiled atmosphere, rode round the rim of the globed toy of trickster powers, where cackles at the thralled gullibles tossed off nobility to create their sin-parties ; and I have seen the cynic multitude bow before the altars of greed and deceit, each professing their own worship before the eyes of many, yet in sooth give up unto nether powers seeded sordid so long ago so that those bound and exiled have indeed bodies beyond reckon. And wisdom is indeed but consolation for the noble in a world where oaths have no value. I throw myself upon the winds, and witness the cascades of simultaneous sacrilege, the festivals of rupture and treason, the ghosts of those not yet given up yet hollow held by but a thread still hanging moaning and abandoned in the ether, and surrounded by powers foreign making plea, promise for price of love and value thrown down. I give nod towards the great gods of this age, astounded, mock-begrudging admire, their sheer plenitude and debased prevalence. Yet mine air breath self-sent, wind-wisdom carried, go out falcon-feather oared, wings smooth cutting air, to love given up. Find woman loving woman, exult ; Find male loving male, exult ; find true love in kiss of man and woman, exultation ; for whereever love finds homage in this abandoned-to-awful world, my soul may find peace. I see the severed spirits halved of maidens and young men killed not by crafted weapons, but black and awful overpower, and soaring, wish-seek to guide them to the Sun's royal fields, and flock to shining golden-cleansed follow that blazing, innocent queen 'cross heavens, restored to that which was stolen from them. And my spirit soars to fly, fleeing sole habitation in viking flight, returning home only to alight, and speak what sooth my soul hath seen, in dreamy outgoings. Around this rock rimmed by fog, few follow ancient Gods of good ; lost many, overawed by immense and monstrous, bow to Giants, crushed in adulation. And I see the circus but will call it no festival, and I mind the madness, but weep at Baldur's fall. Beyond on Freya's folded wings will I find love.
She called it "borrowing", this daughter of Freya, this priestess-naïf with long locks of burgundy, and spoke of it so casually it was as if an everyday experience. "You know, when you are looking at a sparrow on a tree-branch, and suddenly you are inside the sparrow's body, looking back at you, and the sparrow is in you looking at you, the sparrow...". So obvious, so matter of fact, just-so, and plain as day. And my young baffled mind, furiously intrigued, but not knowing, skeptical yet immediately enchanted. And called "borrowing", for the body of each "borrowed" the consciousness of the other.
Was she able to say this, was she able to see this, because she was broken, because, like Freya in her tower, her hair too was tied in knots, and eyes far-away to escape the anguish of unwanted assault? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps. It may be in this world that the broken are those gifted to seethe, for spirit boils and bubbles within them in great pathos and desperation.
I had never heard of any such thing, not, at least, spoken of with such mundane certainty, such common sense borrowed from the stars. But then I read of witches, who told Inquisitors that they transformed into rabbits, and mice, and cats, and feathered things, and it sunk : this was something archetypal. This was not but a fairytale, but an ecstatic experience common to many in the world. And fairytales perhaps were but the informal scriptures of this experiential spirituality.
Then it was that I prayed for enchantment, oh, that one might experience beneath an old, gnarled tree in the woods, losing one's mind, and all sense of time, and touch those deeper, stranger roots where magic happens, not as a manipulation of the material world, but as a sense of wonder and awe more incredible than one had ever hoped.
So it was I fell in love, and was cursed and blessed with the gift of enchantment for which I prayed. It was at this time a book fell into my hands, one I had seen before but passed by. In a New York used bookstore, Hans Peter Duerr's Dreamtime fell into my hands, and it spoke of everything I had heard and hoped for. This was the enchantment for which I had wished, affirmed in words, etched with philosophical erudition and scholarly power.
Oh, that love, love that could marvel, love that stretched and strained one to the breaking point, love that chased after hundreds of miles, from one town to another. Love full of the anguish of the cuckold's horns, Freyr's antlers with which one discovers one's manhood. Manhood in the otherhood, by emptying out one's humanity, into the earth, into the anguish, into that surrender I heartily call abandon. There and then I knew, for I felt my satyr's legs hairy reach down with hooves to the salty, dusty, hay-smelling earth. This is my mate. This is the one for whom my hormones are cellular spells cast creation in the first primeval soups. She is the Earth speaking to me.
Odr and Freya, the one after the other, and reversed, again and again. In those long voyages seeking, tasting that rich red wine of melancholy upon which the greatest poets are drunk, but beyond, begin to see, I, I began melting, transforming, tentatively tasting what she called "borrowing". An oak meadow of golden-brown savannah south of San Francisco. There I felt myself becoming the entire field, my soul stretched out to its very limits, and I was one. There I experienced myself as the oak. Can you imagine? To feel it within one's very body, not an imagination, but a physical, kinesthetic experience of becoming the tree, feeling oneself as the bark and heartwood, boughs and leafed branches. Oh for certain it was that now I was broken that I could so feel. I had asked for enchantment, and was given that broken heart through which alone the mind of the mundane may be opened. I fell into that Ophelia-space she so readily drifted within, and there I tasted the seethe of her seidthe.
Oh, then to Deleuze and Guattari, not to chase after postmodernisms, but seeking words deranged and wild, as Rimbaud turned and twisted into philosophy, that might speak such strange derangements love had brought me. For you see, I had been gifted with an elfin gift, a light rarely able to linger in this world, and that was the realization that though I belonged to her, I yet did not belong, and thus, I belonged where I did not belong. It was, in other words, the knowledge that in impossibles our highest essence is to be found, for in contradiction there is light as like unto no other. (An Odinic realization!) And thought is not that which has been thought before. It is rather the puzzle in the paradox, the struggle within the riddle's contradiction, the careful thrashing within the tarry cat's cradle whereby one struggles to be free, and join together what resists synthesis.
There is yet a catch to such love and such madness. Where love coheres in the impossible, it cannot long be sustained in this world so intolerant of contradiction, so enamored of resolution. What may dance in the wave equation is so far beyond its collapse upon which the atoms of this world are built! So you might touch eternity, you might know the transform of the beloved beyond all forms, and yet, in time, it might pass on, disperse, and be lost. The love of your life.
And then you might spend years dazed, longing, desperate to bring it back, like the shepherd in the tale who once having seen the Fairie, wastes away from thereonin, for nothing within this mundane world can ever compare to such Exhaustive, Inexhaustible Beauty. Oh, say Deadly Beauty! Yet tales are warnings ; I would not waste away, nor would I let waste such wonder. For when you are given a gift, you are also given a debt, one that must be repaid, and when it is magic, with interest.
There are lessons others may provoke within us, but it is we who must claim them. Another can only evoke for so long. Then, if we find that which has been sparked to be of any worth, it is we who must find a way to make it live within us. Such could be the task of many years, or even decades. But it defines the very difference between the diligent and the lazy. Such is a devotion that may well be called religious, for did you not know that the genius is but that fairy-fylgia the Norns and Gods assigned to us from places more divine?
Her name meant "light", her name meant "lands of bliss beneath the earth", her name meant "broad pastures", and these were each true names. And oh, within her form, did Freya speak most freely. If ever flesh were epiphany, if cells might portals be that open the gateways to spirits' call, she was, she was. And all began, some foolish young maiden, with simple talk of "borrowing". Oh, simple indeed!
For that I resist you, I love you. For that I shall not sway e'en to your overaweing charm, I declare my loyalty, through a stance that separates myself from thee. For that I stand apart, from this very stance, I say, I love thee. For that I nurture that anger you birth within me, from the very heart of principle offended, I hold that which is highest in thee high, and shall not cease to salute. But from the very ground of my own being, which cannot be abandoned, not even for that love I hold.
For that I resist you, I love you. For you merit the highest love, and that love I give comes with rebuke, for that which is less than strong. O beloved, I would have you tall with might, I would have your arms bicep'd and flexed, with fist raised tall against the age's holy terrors, for I hold you that high, higher than any cower or crouch which you might in fear's moment timid give. There are those lines where I cannot give, where the cord hath no slack, and I may not sway to please, not even thee.
Look yonder upon seaside cliff, there on that peak I stand defiant, and my aired fist is a salute to thee, a salute which says I shall not come down. O love, I know I myself merit rebuke, but think thee not this breast does not itself whip in each Delling's scion sail across skies? I am my own highest critic, and whatever strong satire your bridled tongue might wish is uttered more loudly within, and so I too grow by rebuke, for where I have wilted, I have failed the blossom, and where I have melted, I have refused the strong edge of stone, and I alone must answer these irrefutable charges. How mighty indeed these taunting indictments, that only the strong counsel of my soul's elfin spirit may eke good defense in that court to come! I shall not let my failures lie fallow, but lift them goad to mock and make me more, for I have no excuse to be less than strong, and it is strength the fruit the Gods wish to pick from those trees to whom they Godly gave breath! Yet so I may call thee out to that might your own soul merits.
For that I resist you, I love you. It is not, as it might seem, in follow that we most loyal show. Distance is but a glue to those whose hearts cannot help but honor, and that I "no" utter, to above dress my deeper "yes", is but a way of love through defiance. For you come not to feed me, but to be, and where I say you fail to feed, I utter only my own menu, and do not condemn, only affirming my self appetite. O love, you are greater than fodder for my taste, and that your lips alone do not feed me is no testament against that strong esteem mature I hold for thee, for such is nothing less than sooth.
For that I resist you, I love you. It is none less than utter respect. For you are holy, beloved, and beg distinction, which the distance of my arms grant. The heart in its uniqueness is ever so close. Your dignity is foremost in my defiance. You have touched me, and I shall say so, and it shall never not be, nor not have been, for what is truly touched is transformed, and must speak its truthful weaving if sooth is e'er to be had. I cannot be as you will, for I am wild, but know, beauty wrapped in gleaming skin and wonder-word dripping lips, that this wildness I am, even in resistance, says nothing but, I love you, even if I utter it past the slough of romance's coil, for love is found for strong souls in ecdysis. So let it be.
[F]imbulfambi heitir sá er fátt kann segja þat er ósnotrs aðal (Havamal 103). "The greatest fool is called he who can say such little, for that is the estate of the unsophisticated." [O]rðum skipta þú skalt aldregi við ósvinna apa því at af illum manni mundu aldregi góðs laun um geta (Havamal 122-3), "Words exchange thou shalt never with an uncouth and rude ape, for from an ill man wilt thou never receive reward for good."
Monsters merit not reply when they open roars from deformed maws and howl ; for merit is the price paid to be received. Many a day the unfinished, unbloomed raw rocks of crudeness roar and wish it speak, yet none are loosed from the long ladder of golden light so struggle stretched up to reach we all must climb. Rough preludes of could-be gems lie jagged and dormant within us, begging polish by kindness and strength and courtesy. But the stones' untamed cliff-scions wreak their havoc in jagged fits, which wins the merit only of Mjollnir. More than this must be ventured if ears of only the most common are wished purchase, let alone the just-below-elven ears of the noble, no less the golden ears of Heimdall, who sole carries the wish and holy bid to Gods, up rainbow paths of sky's hued flames, if he sees merit in the calling. Does one think one moments' folly to shove the curse of bigot's strife and pack the holy ears with dung be carried? Nay, such unworthed words, uncouth and rude, are dropped into the dungheaps ; down there near the dungeons where such offal feeds the awesome Mill.
all translations copyright 2010 by Siegfried Goodfellow
