One must always remember that Freya’s domain is not limited to romance, the flowering of love, but all loveliness itself. This means beauty, it means affection between friends, it means the devotion native to the fruit of love (children), and the family-ties that flow therefrom. In all things, she cultivates the lovely, and it is this quality of loveliness which she fosters within the world to adorn it as she is adorned with Brisingamen, her shining necklace. Beauty makes us to love, and it is not just an external adornment, but a quality that glows from within. From Freya’s standpoint, art is simply that which successfully manifests the beauty within. Here even an ugly face may be more beautiful than a pretty face without loveliness, and we may be tested to see whether we simply fawn after appealing surfaces, or whether the surfaces of beautiful things draw us deeper into the loveliness within, so that beauty may find its root, for where the root is, there is strength.
It is the loveliness within things which makes them bloom. All life struggles to find its beauty, and within the constraints of each several existence, the urgency towards poignancy, that revelation of soul which is exposure of all the creature loves, is the force behind growth. Thus she causes flowers to blossom, and beasts to burst with fruit of the womb. She is Beauty, and her brother is Joy. Together they are the peace and fruitfulness that love brings. If you can’t see the garden as a rampant love affair, you haven’t been understanding the very process of life itself.
We all yearn for that crown of Freya’s gifts, romance, that hormone-circulating devotion and passion which makes all the world seem lovely, and we pine for it when it is absent. But we must remember that Freya is abundant with gifts of love even when romance is dormant, for the love of friends and family should never be discounted or devalued, for these kinds of love also bring out the loveliness of the world, sometimes in softer ways than romance, but often more lasting and stronger. If our romances, in fact, can take on the qualities of those loves that cleave to friends and family, grafting onto its rootstock, as it were, we will have demonstrated our devotion to Freya.
Freya flows with compassion and benevolence beyond compare, but she tasks for the gifts she gives, that we show proper devotion to them, and not toss them aside like bored toys. That which is lovely deserves devotion, and those who cannot incorporate this truth into their life may find themselves increasingly barren. Freya can test you. She wants you to rise up to the level of what love demands. Do not expect love to bow to you, for you must bow to love. You may have to travel long for love ; you may have to risk for love ; you may have to learn patience, and bear hardship, and develop resilience in the face of even repeated disappointment. You may have your temper tantrums and your listlessness in this regard, but she expects you to come back and be ready once again for the privilege of bearing the weight of love, for when it comes, its loveliness will lighten all the loads one carries.
To woo love, cultivate loveliness. Develop your sense of beauty, and let it manifest in the world. Find ways of transforming even the ugly and ogrely into domains of loveliness through well-plied and skillful art. Learn to love yourself through feeling and appreciating the loveliness you are capable of manifesting. If at times you feel that no one else loves you, when you allow beauty to express itself through you, that experience is itself the feeling of Freya’s deep love for you. If she loves you, and she does, unless you have abandoned yourself completely to the monstrous, then you are worthy of love.
Freya was locked away from the world at one point during the yore-days, and imprisoned in a cold, frozen dungeon deep beneath the mountains. Because of this, the world lost its loveliness, the flowers stopped blooming, romance and childbirth came to a standstill. She is now free, but each of us must live through her drama for ourselves, and free her from within. Only Odr was able to free her. Our soul of inspiration and imagination must do the work of trekking through all the trials, bearing all the setbacks, and plowing through all the endless snow to reach her and free her. For we ourselves are frozen off from love until we do so. Odr was lucky ; her peril was his opportunity, for under what other circumstances could a mortal win the hand of immortal love? So we mortals must treat her as precious, and do whatever it takes to unlock her from the frozen dungeon that too often is our heart, and thaw it into springlands of wild blossoms.
It’s not easy. But it’s worth it. And just as Freya’s drama from the yore-days was celebrated liturgically year after year in the passing of the seasons, so we too may many times pass through these cycles ourselves. If we are lucky, and if we are wise, and if we are devoted, those cycles will evolve into spirals that evolve us and bring us closer to fulfillment each round.
