For Midgard to change is natural and inevitable. The Holocene Epoch, during which our current ecosystem and our human cultures and religions evolved, will one day come to an end. Based on the time scale of earlier epochs, we ought to have a million years to go, but there is reason to believe the timetable could be upset by human actions.
Of all the gods, Odin is the one most concerned with preparing for the end of the age. I cannot help but wonder if he has been so actively recruiting during the past few years in an attempt to keep the destiny of the gods from being fulfilled too soon. If that is so, those of us who have answered his call have an obligation to help stave off Ragnarök in our time. When I first started talking about this, my friend Lorrie suggested that we form the Teal Party, which is what happens when Odin's blue meets environmental green. It even has an anthem, which you will find in appendix 2.
Whether it comes late or soon, in that final battle, Odin, at least in the forms in which we have known him throughout the history of Midgard, will die.
A second sorrow comes to Hlin [aspect of Frigg]
When Odin fares to fight the Wolf,
And the bane of Beli [Frey] to battle Surt.
Then will Frigg's lover fall.
—Völuspá 53
Dealing with Death
While Odin's concerns certainly include death and the dead, what is his meaning to us? Names and epithets are only part of the picture. What does it mean when we find a god whom we have first seen as a creator dealing death? And why do we need to pay attention to the dead?
The more I study the traditions of indigenous cultures in general and the Germanic peoples in particular, the more I realize that the dead were as integral a part of the religious system as the gods and the land. Honoring them is easier if you live in places where the dust of your ancestors is part of the earth you walk on or near a cemetery where you can put flowers on family graves than it is for those who no longer live near their parents, much less in the town where their grandparents lived and died.
Cremation makes environmental sense (and is the traditional method of disposal for followers of Odin), but a sense of connection can be lost when the ashes are scattered on the wind. And yet, even when we change our politics, our lifestyle, or our religion, we carry our physical ancestors with us in our DNA. Likewise, in the psyche we carry ancestors of the spirit—those who created the culture in which we grew up, whose stories we have read and heard, and whose ideas have shaped our souls.
By developing a relationship with those who lived before us, we create a context for the loss of those we live with today. Egil Skallagrimsson railed against Odin when his son was drowned, but in the end, he came to understand that the god's gift of poetry, though it could not negate Egil's grief, gave him a way to process it. Sorrow cannot be denied. It must be accepted, embraced, transcended. Odin asks nothing that he himself has not known. He too has lost a son. Unless they pass on the road after Ragnarök, Baldr, alone among all Odin's offspring, is the one whom he will never see again.
The other death that each one of us must deal with is our own. The old heroes laughed as they died because they lived on the edge, and if death did not come on a foe's sword, it would come from cold or the sea or hunger or disease. The men of the north knew themselves vulnerable, so they exulted in making good use of the power and time they had. It is not necessary to kill to know this, but you do have to accept danger, to forgo the idea that health or money in the bank will make you secure.
When we face Odin as a god of death, what are we looking at? What is it that we need to understand? We can gain some insight from “The Song of Odin,” by Michaela Macha (2004).
I am the rider of the tree
I am a draught of poet's mead
I am the socket's empty yawn
I am hunger: Who but I
Will sacrifice his self to Self?
I am the guest you don't expect
I am a song to wake the dead
I am a tide that drowns your mind
I am a trickster: Who but I
Brings woe to you and weal at once?
I am the spear to find your heart
I am a wolf within the woods
I am a storm that tears apart
I am creator: Who but I
Gives unto deadwood breath of life?
I am the counsel that brings fame
I am a sword that drinks your blood
I am a raven on a corpse
I am a gallows: who but I
Brings you to death while holding you?
I am the walker and the way
I am the gateway and the key
I am the rope of every thread
I am the end of every means.
Practice
1. Make a will.
First address the disposal of possessions and property, including ritual items. But when you have fulfilled your responsibilities to your heirs by addressing all the aspects the law might require, take a new piece of paper and list the nonphysical things you are leaving behind you. What have you done with your life? What have you given to the world? What deeds might earn the “fair fame” that will survive you? If you can't think of anything now, try making a “bucket list” of things you'd like to accomplish before you die.
If you are wondering how Odin might do this exercise, try listening to the Frank Sinatra song, “My Way.”
2. Read Krákumál at http://www.odins-gift.com/pclass/ragnarlodbroks-deathsong.htm and write your own Death Song.
3. Work with your ancestors.
If you don't already have a family tree, try one of the online genealogical services. If you have a yard, create a symbolic grave-mound in which you place pictures of your dead relatives. If that is not possible, gather pictures of dead friends and relatives to display. Serve a meal of foods traditional in your family. Set an extra place for the dead. When you have praised their deeds, eat in silence, opening your heart to their wisdom.
4. Celebrate Memorial or Veteran's Day.
Make an altar to the Einherior, honoring both those who have served their country in the military and other heroes whom you think deserve a place in Valhalla.
5. Spend some time in a cemetery.
Open your awareness to the dead. If circumstances allow, spend the night sitting out, ideally by the grave of a relative. Take a notebook to record the thoughts that come to you.
6. Honor the Hunt.
Wait for a good storm to come along at Yuletide—the latter part of December or the beginning of the year. Go outside and listen to the howling wind. Can you hear the Hunt raving through the skies? Set out offerings of apples for the horses—for the riders, bread and beer. Sing the “Wild Hunt” song (music is in appendix 2).
7. Eighth Night Meditation: God of the Dead
Set up your altar space as usual and light a black candle. You may also add pictures of ancestors or heroes. Then say:
Odin, by these names I invoke you:
Hangatyr and Váfudhr (Dangler)
Draugadrótin (Draugar Lord)
Hléfödhr (Mound Father)
Valfadhr (Father of the Slain)
Wod . . .
When the ones I loved are lost,
When the final fight is done,
Limbs no longer will obey,
And the enemy has won,
Odin, grieve with me.
When my heart is pierced by pain,
When lungs lose the fight for breath,
From my eyes the vision fades,
Word and will are blocked by death,
Odin, do not leave me.
When body's bonds no longer hold,
When mind, unmoored, at last breaks free,
To wander myriad worlds and ways
Experiencing ecstasy,
Odin, receive me.
Contemplate your death. You do not know how or when, but the one thing we all know is that it will come. You can read this meditation then think about it, or read it onto a tape to use as an induction.
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br /> Lie or sit comfortably. You are safe here. Know that your body will be warded until you return.
Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply. Let awareness of sounds and scents around you fade. Focus awareness in your feet and legs, then let them relax. Pay attention to hands and arms and then let them go limp as well. Feel the weight of your head and torso supported by bed or chair. As you breathe more slowly and deeply, awareness of your body recedes until a single cord of connection remains.
Who are you? What is the essence of the point of light that is your Self? Focus on that point, float in that peace. . . .
Reach out to the god. . . .
After a time, you feel a tug. The shining cord is pulling you back to awareness of your body, first your head and torso, then arms and hands, legs and feet. Breathe in and out more quickly, notice the smell of the air, the sounds in the room. Extend awareness, pull back all aspects of your Self. Then open your eyes and return to ordinary consciousness.
At Mimir's Well
Knowest thou where the Thunderflood rushes down from the heights, and where the mist from its frothing waters glimmers with rainbows? Canst name the seats of stone where the holy gods their judgments make? Knowest thou the place at the roots of the Tree where the Norns weave the fates of men? It may be, for the way to all of these has been shown to Æsir and Vans, and even sometimes to men.
But few there are of any kindred who have fared eastward round the Tree, towards Jotunheim. Here, tangled filaments glistening with rime trap the unwary. Long this web has been a-weaving, since time's beginning, layer upon layer of ice has been laid down. Each strand, beaded with that brilliance, mirrors the movement of the world and holds it forever fast. In that braiding of brightness is preserved all patterning. And all this crystal world cradles a deep well that waits for the moment when the distant sun sends through the latticework a single shaft. Something gleams in the well then; a star shines from the depths, and all the crystal webs reflect its radiance in rainbows beside which even Bifrost is pale.
Once Odin found his way here, wandering, seeking wisdom. The High One, to the depths descending, saw the knowledge refracted in the sharded strands and wanted to know more. He looked into the smooth, still waters beneath the crystal roots of the Tree. He put out a hand to cup the water, and found the surface smooth as ice, hard as stone. He sat back again and spoke a stave.
“Vegtam they call me, and far have I fared,
Much have I striven with powers—
Desirous am I of a drink from these depths,
Who shall deliver this draft to me?”
The smooth surface shivered. Words echoed from the crystal webs in a shimmer of sound.
“What wayfarer with such boldness bids me?
Three questions shall he ask and three shall answer;
A forfeit I take from him who fails,
But he drinks what he wills who masters me!”
Odin agreed to the terms of the contest, and the Voice from the well continued.
“Say then, Wanderer how the world was fashioned,
Who brought into being the beauty men see?”
Odin said:
“The Sons of Bor brought forth that beauty,
Midgardh they built from Ymir's bones.”
Once more the question came.
“And who called the creatures, in the world's beginning
Showed the Moon his way, set the Sun in her path?”
Odin said:
“The holy gods, gathered together,
On Ydalir's green plain gave all things names.”
The Well said:
“What name did they give to the well at the world's root,
Called the cauldron of crystal to the east of the Tree?”
But Odin was silent, for the gods could not name a thing of which they had no knowledge. And laughter came then from the deeps, and echoed in tinkling mockery from every shard of ice in the crystal web.
“Didst thou have true wisdom, oh Wanderer,
Wouldst have remembered what now I ask.
The Eye from thy head will I have as my forfeit,
Choose which one it is that thou wilt cast in!”
The Wanderer shrank back, but his word was given. Right eye or left eye—how could such a choice be mastered? Time he must have, though Loki was not there to melt the ice or find another way.
“Grant me first the answers,” said he, “to the riddles I shall say!
What is the place where the Norns are ever weaving,
In what spot do they spin out the fates of mankind?”
The Well said:
“At the Well of Urdhr the threads are woven,
Of the world which was, which is, and which will be.”
Odin said:
“What is that seat that the High One seeks
When the ways of the Nine Worlds he needs to know?”
The Well said:
“On the heights of Asgard, in the seat called Hlithskjalf,
The High One sits to see what passes below.”
Odin said:
“And how shall he look on what lies beyond it?
From what vantage shall Valfather view the spirit world?”
Thus spoke the Wanderer, but from the Well came only silence.
“I will drink,” said Odin, “and then thy forfeit I will pay.”
And he bent once more, cupping his hands, and gazing into the waters, saw endless depths that beckoned him to explore their mysteries. He dipped and he drank, and what went into him was Wisdom. He understood then all the answers to everything.
“Mimir art called, in the Cauldron of Memory
My eye shall I cast as the cost of this wisdom.
From thy darkness shall the Eye of Vafuth,
See all secrets at the heart of the worlds.”
And with hand still wet with wisdom, he tore out one eye from his head and cast it in.
“I know thee now, thou art not Vegtam,” sang the Well,
“but rather Odin, Oldest of Gods—”
The bright blood ran down the god's cheek and fell into the water. In a whisper came the reply.
“Odin I am, and One-Eyed also,
Single my seeing now, whichever eye I shall open.
From Hlithskjalf the waking world one eye watches,
From Mimisbrun my other shall mind what lies within.”
And it was so, and so it is that now when the lord of Asgard sits upon his Seat of Seeing, he perceives all that walk in the world. Terrible indeed is the glance of his living eye when he looks out over Midgard, but more terrible is the emptiness beneath the puckered lid on the other side, for it gazes within. Shape and structure, pattern, connection, all these he sees. He comprehends the myriad levels of meaning there.
Once a day, when the single shaft of sunlight slips through the crystal forest, it reaches to the depths of the Well. And then the Eye of Odin opens and a radiance blazes back that dims the sun, for what it looks upon is the glory beyond Ginnungagap. Then, it is Uncreated Light that the lost Eye of Odin sees.
Fig. 17. The Eye in the Well
CHAPTER TEN
God of Ecstasy
“God of Ecstasy” is not usually listed as one of Odin's names. However, I would like to propose that it might serve as an English expression of the primary name by which we know him.
The origin and meaning of Óðinn have tantalized scholars since at least the 10th century. Associations with madness, mind, vision, and other perceptions, poetry, and inspiration have all been hotly debated. To begin, let us consider two of his most important myths—how he got the mead of poetry, parts of which we have discussed in chapters 5 and 8, and the story of his visit to the Well of Mimir.
The Eye of Odin Is upon You
Mystic Odin's missing eye in Mimir's Well gleams
Glows in the gloom there, glaring through
Wisdom's deep waters, watching the tides
Of Mind that move Men's dooms.
In the Well of the
Wise, one eye sees
Shadow shifting to shape the world
The course of the currents causing all things,
Rightly thus reading the Runes of Fate.
—Paul Edwin Zimmer, 1979
In Völuspá 28, the seeress tells Odin that she knows his eye is hidden in Mimisbrunr, the Well of Mimir. In the Younger Edda, we get the story.
But under the root that reaches toward the frost giants, that is where Mimir's Well is, which has wisdom and intelligence contained in it, and the master of the well is called Mimir. He is full of learning because he drinks of the well from the horn Gjallarhorn. All-father went there and asked for a single drink from the well, but he did not get one until he placed his eye as a pledge. (Gylfaginning 15)
This account gives rise to a number of questions, starting with the origins and nature of Mimir. In Gylfaginning 51, it is said that Odin will consult with the head of Mimir when Ragnarök draws near. As the story is told in Ynglingasaga 4, Mimir and Hoenir were sent to the Vanir as hostages after the war. Hoenir was the most impressive in looks, but he made Mimir do all the talking. Exasperated by Hoenir's silence, the Vanir cut off Mimir's head and sent it with Hoenir back to Asgard, where “Odin took the head, smeared it with such herbs that it could not rot, quoth spells over it, and worked such charms that it talked with him and told him many hidden things” (Ynglingasaga 4). According to Sigdrífumál 14–19, these things include how to inscribe and use the runes.
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