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Ep. 5: The Prophecy of Ragnarok
931 Plays1 year ago
Dive deep into the cosmic tapestry of Norse prophecy with Kierra and special guest Con—Asatruar and passionate student of psychology! 🎙️ Join us as we unravel the enigmatic verses of the Voluspa, exploring the creation of worlds, the cataclysmic Ragnarok, and the promise of rebirth. 🌟
🔍 Key Highlights:
- Destruction's Overture: Explore the prophesied battles of Ragnarok, where gods clash with chaos in an epic cosmic showdown.
- Rebirth's Promise: Journey through the aftermath, discovering the resilient seeds of life and the emergence of a new world.
- Symbology Decoded: Delve into the rich symbolism woven into the Voluspa, transcending literal interpretations to unveil deeper metaphors.
🚀 Guest Star: Con, Asatruar & Psychology Aficionado
🔗 Links: https://www.tiktok.com/@steeldruid?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Embark on a cosmic odyssey with us, where ancient wisdom meets modern insights! 🌌✨ Hit play now and immerse yourself in the timeless lore of the Voluspa—a journey of creation, destruction, and the eternal dance of rebirth. Don't miss out on this captivating episode! #VoluspaRevealed #RagnarokProphecy #NorseMythology #HeathenWisdom #PodcastExploration #HearthofWyrdMagic
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:04
Speaker
You're listening to the Heart of Weird podcast, where we discuss heathenry, lore, and legend, and the modern take on an ancient practice. Hello, and welcome to the Heart of Weird podcast. I am your host, Kira. And today with us, we have a special guest, Con. Hello. Con, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Con's Interests and Research
00:00:33
Speaker
So my name's Khan. I'm a Norse pagan. You can call me that in our trial. Whatever you want to use term-wise is fine. I like the Norse gods, like Norse mythology, like the history, like the people, like modern neo-pagans. I'm currently studying a Masters of Research in Psychology with the question that I'm focusing on being what attracts people primarily to neo-paganism today?
Norse Mythology Overview
00:00:57
Speaker
Like what is it that makes them want to be neo-pagan in the first place?
00:01:00
Speaker
That's me pretty much. I've got an interest in axe throwing as well. I'm okay at that. And I like books and staying inside. And staying inside? Relatable. Yeah, I'd say the world's terrible. Except for forests. There are no people in forests. Forests are great. They're fine. There are no people in the forest. Oh, it's so nice. So today we're talking about Voluspa. And this is, to me, one of the fucking greatest masterpieces in all of Norse lore.
00:01:28
Speaker
Like, I absolutely love this poem. Essentially, it opens the conversation of the cosmos, like the creation of the cosmos, the organization of the cosmos. Odin wakes this volva, or cirrus, or witch, however you want to look at it, and is asking her a bunch of questions. And she goes into the creation of the world, and then she
00:01:54
Speaker
kind of traces the emergence of the gods, the establishment of cosmic order via the Aesir tribe, and then kind of how everything connects.
Exploration of Voluspa and Ragnarok
00:02:04
Speaker
And then it gets into this prophecy, this prophecy of the twilight of the gods. And we're talking like cosmic conflict. And it kind of just leads you through all of the major pivotal moments in Norse mythology.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think that Velas was like one of the most interesting poems, especially because it's like usually the first one you read is always going to be one of the most interesting. It sets a stage, doesn't it? It's sort of the world building story. It's like this is everything you will need to know roughly to understand what the characters are doing and moving through, or at least what the general scope of the story is. It's a fantastic setting. But I mean, the the prophecy of Ragnarok is just on its own, a fascinating metaphor, because it's
00:02:46
Speaker
It's a really strong example of this cyclical circular thinking of everything is happening, everything has happened, and everything is going to happen again. What does that mean? And you have to break that apart. And it speaks to the poetic understanding of the people at the time.
00:03:02
Speaker
although I guess you could argue Story Sturluson's understanding of the people's poetry at the time, but it's one of those premium sort of rich stories and metaphors that you can share with people who aren't even interested in this sort of thing, and they'll be kind of captivated by it because it's such a root concept, like the Ouroboros symbol, the idea of the Jormungandr eating his own tail, and time eating itself is a very cool concept, I think, for most humans to think about.
Thematic Analysis of Cosmic Cycles
00:03:29
Speaker
Right, right. Exactly. Like where the beginning and where the ending is, like there is no beginning or ending. You know, it's that concept of continuation, even through this insane level of destruction. But like getting into the prophecy of Ragnarok, the heart of Ragnarok really lies in this
00:03:53
Speaker
insane cosmic battle between forces that are, you know, nearly incomprehensible. Like these are cosmic forces, gods, mythical beings, primordial forces. And the poem, we're talking like the major players in Norse mythology, we've got Odin, we have Thor, we have Hamdall, we have Tyr, we have all of these major forces, Loki, are
00:04:18
Speaker
confronting each other. We have creation and destruction literally clashing in a really intense scene, super intense, this divine struggle against chaotic forces, this organized group being utterly shattered by the things that they have tried to control. I think it's really interesting too.
Odin's Pursuit of Wisdom and Fate
00:04:41
Speaker
It's kind of the first place that we see
00:04:45
Speaker
Odin's seeking of knowledge. And I honestly think that there's a kenning in the Havamal that comes from this, right? Because the Havamal is kind of just like the poetic Edda boiled down into kenning. I suppose, yeah. I mean, it is Odin's advice from his stories. I suppose it's his wisdom from what he's read, from what you're reading, I suppose. Right.
00:05:09
Speaker
there's one one stanza that sticks out to me particularly and that stanza 56 and it says you should be only a little wise never too wise it is best not to know your fate beforehand you will live happier if you don't a man is seldom ever happy if he is too wise yes exactly yeah that's the one right before it yeah that's 55
00:05:32
Speaker
That stuck in my head for a long time, actually. I think when I was in a very sad place, I remember myself taking a photo of that particular stanza and posting it to my Instagram just to be extra dramatic. Well, I mean, absolutely. You must. Odin as a character is like, he's really, really nicely demonstrated again in the Veluspid that like, you're right. His lust for knowledge, his need for knowledge is really what we're pinpointing.
00:05:55
Speaker
Because, I mean, the witch, I believe, the vulva repeatedly answers at the end of, sorry, she answers him, but then at the end of it says, have you heard enough now? Like, yeah. And it's not, it doesn't sound to me like in the reading of it. It doesn't sound like an aggressive, like, have you have you heard enough from me? Can you go away now? It sounds more like, you know, are you sure you want to keep learning?
00:06:16
Speaker
You know what, that's a really good, that's a really good take on it. Because like even in different translations, my favorite translation, she asked, would you know yet more? And it really is kind of that, are you sure? Yeah, you sure you wanna know that? You want me to keep going? Like, and so at first I thought it was kind of like a cocky thing, like, would you know yet more? Like, here I am telling you this stuff. But I actually really, I really appreciate that take on it.
00:06:38
Speaker
Like, that seems to fit a little bit better. Like, you sure you want to get into this? I think, for me, I'm perhaps projecting something of a bias onto Odin as a character.
Odin's Actions and Symbolism of Fenrir
00:06:48
Speaker
I think I see him as something of a sad, tragic character. Because of the nature of his almost self-fulfilling prophecy, he makes everything happen.
00:06:57
Speaker
But after he learns that it's going to happen in the attempt trying to not do it, does it? It's a very common sort of trope in storytelling with time travel being a factor or with, you know, prophecy where the character fights their hardest and causes it to happen. Self-fulfilling.
00:07:13
Speaker
And it's sad because I think everyone could appreciate it's like, you know, who doesn't empathize with the concept of struggling, say emotionally, but maybe that emotional struggle manifests in ways that cause you problems with dealing with it. And it's almost like the harder you fight, the more that becomes a problem, the more that becomes overpowering and you don't really get it right.
00:07:33
Speaker
Well, and that happens even if you don't have a fucking serious telling you what's coming next. My anxiety fills in the blanks for me, and I'm fighting against possible outcomes that I have literally created in my head. And it is usually fear-driven, which I feel Odin's actions following this prophecy are fear-driven. In fact, I kind of see Fenrir as the embodiment of Odin's fear.
00:07:57
Speaker
I think many people would agree with you. I've often said that I think of Odin as having de-mentophobia. He is terrified of the concept of many things, but most importantly, losing control. Losing control of himself most certainly. When he's talking about Hugo de Munin saying,
00:08:13
Speaker
I fear one day they won't come back and I'll be left without my memory. And that is an interesting fear that is manifested in Fenrir, this wolf that will swallow him, that will kill him and eat him, as if he's just prey. It's almost like he gets, because to be eaten, to be consumed by something is actually to say that you are inferior to that thing usually, or to say that you're subservient automatically, because you're food for it. In that moment, there's a carnal symbology going on.
00:08:39
Speaker
I think it's fascinating that he thinks of it as that. And then you see similar descriptions of depression in people like Winston Churchill, who talked about feeling like a black wolf was following him. And this metaphor makes sense, I think, because what is more terrifying than a social animal that has been driven to the brink where it is alone now, and it has no family, and it is desperate, and it is hungry, and it's all consuming. It's like, that's a metaphor, in my opinion, for someone who's desperate for connection.
00:09:09
Speaker
needs to do that with people but can't get themselves there because of what's going on inside of them and I know we want to talk about Fenner in a bit but like he's he's on his own interesting Odin is just
00:09:21
Speaker
I don't know, he's tragic, he's sad, he's not a bright character it seems in the end, he's very intelligent and very wise, but he misses some vital stuff very clearly. So what does that say about everyone else though, is kind of the point. It's like, if even the head of your pantheon is very flawed,
00:09:39
Speaker
and has multiple flaws, not just a few, and so do all the other gods. They've all got something going on. What does that say about ordinary people and their potential and what you can do with your particular brand of issue or problem, which there is a diversity of, it seems, represented in the pantheon?
00:09:57
Speaker
100%. Absolutely. I love that, though, because then we can see pieces of ourselves in not just one, you know, and we can see redeeming qualities that they hold, too. And so like that we can also strive to emulate, you know, like they may be facing this, but here's how they
Influence of Norse Mythology Across Cultures
00:10:11
Speaker
do this. And I admire this, you know, and like giving us a giving us an avenue or inspiration for an avenue to build ourselves. You know what you you made me think of when you were saying Fenrir and
00:10:26
Speaker
When I remember when I first read the stories, when I read about Fenrir, do you know what immediately sprang to mind for me? I don't know. Sorry, I was going to say it. You don't? Come on. It brought to mind, you had to have seen this, the never ending story. Oh, what, Falcor?
00:10:45
Speaker
No, the Black Wolf in Never Ending Story. I don't remember the Never Ending Story, apparently. Oh my gosh. Oh gosh. Okay. There is this point where, and it's been forever since I've seen it too, but I remember being a kid and watching the Never Ending Story and watching this wolf with glowing eyes like creep out of the bushes, and it was like the embodiment of fear.
00:11:06
Speaker
right? And it worked alongside the nothing, essentially, like it was just another like aspect of that. But like creeping out of the bushes and horrifying me as a child. And as soon as I read about Fenrir, that is immediately what sprang to mind.
00:11:18
Speaker
I think I get that, that makes sense though, like I'm sure if you looked, I mean I don't know if you've looked into the meta-context about like going to see what the authors were intending with that scene but like it's probable that they probably took influence from that because the the image of a black wolf being sort of this this embodiment of fear or danger is actually pretty common across like most Indo-European cultures it seems. Oh it's an incredibly common omen. Like the Isle of Man I think off the top of my head the Isle of Man's mythology has a black wolf as part of it
00:11:44
Speaker
um really that is the embodiment of sort of you know danger or something to that extent but i believe like i'm pretty sure that like the angosaxons irish uh kelts um you know um and all for all form of the nordics like all those ancient religions had a concept of a black wolf or a predator like it that embodied fear because that's that seems kind of automatic for most cultures like a crocodile is pretty dangerous and scary so you make that the embodiment of say
00:12:10
Speaker
a particular form of death. You make the jungle another one, you know, you anthropomorphize as you go, which you see in a lot of these pagan religions in the first place, this idea of animalistic traits almost. 100%. They embody the emotion that they evoke. Yeah, for sure. Like an eagle is all purveying and sees everything and is able to fly over, or a raven is the same thing. Well, and even ravens, especially with how clever they are and how smart they are. Yeah, I completely, completely agree.
00:12:37
Speaker
Imagine being on a boat and you're sailing off to England or something. You've got some ravens on board and they start speaking back to you. I'd probably be like, yeah, you're pretty magical. Absolutely. 100%. I'd be pretty impressed. I'd be like, this bird can talk. Coach shit, you guys. The thing with Fenrir is
00:12:58
Speaker
I think he makes more sense with his own story. When we talk about the binding of Fenrir later, alongside the Veluspyr, the context of that makes it more complete. We're given this presentation where a big black wolf kills and eats Odin, but we don't exactly know fully why yet. We haven't got the emotional drive of the story without that part of Tyr's betrayal. But it's the context then that makes it make more direct sense. Fenrir is not necessarily an enemy to begin with.
00:13:26
Speaker
that he becomes an enemy later, when Odin's fear of what he will do to the family... Potentially. Potentially.
00:13:33
Speaker
causes him to betray Fenrir essentially and forces here to betray him and it's like Odin did that he broke his family in his attempt to save it which is you know with that family concept embodying it the whole pantheon being there and participating in this it makes more sense that Fenrir is a fear of the demise of that unit and it makes more sense in the context perhaps of the society it's from because the family was everything so
00:13:58
Speaker
if you didn't have your family you were done for, so of course your fearful representation takes that away from you. So Fenrir, as a character I think, represents the shadow, which is a Jungian idea, sorry a Carl Jung idea, when he discusses these elements of people in their psychology that they do not want to acknowledge, that they contradict the ego in it in a sense. Yeah, so they just deny it.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, you just deny it, you hide it. So it's like maybe I'm an aggressive person in my nature or I've had some trauma that's made me aggressive but I'm also a people pleaser so I want to suppress that element and make myself more appealing to others, you know? I want to be liked so I don't let people know that I'm something like that. I hide it to an extent.
00:14:41
Speaker
Confronting the shadow, or shadow at work, as people tend to call it these days, is the idea of looking at your shadow on purpose and digging through it and saying, you know, why actually do I feel this way? And how can I control that? How can I use, how can I incorporate that into myself? It's all about the idea of incorporating these other parts of yourself into yourself more comprehensively. Because without them, you aren't you.
00:15:02
Speaker
represents the shadow quite nicely, I think, because one, he's a big black wolf, so he looks like a shadow, which is already a good start. But Tia is the god of justice and war, I believe, who is, you know, being nice to Fenrir this whole time, who is, you know,
00:15:18
Speaker
dealing with him, feeding him, talking to him at least, and involving him, until the gods have the whole thing of like, let's put a magic ribbon on Fenrir because Odin is terrified of him and he's going to kill us. Fenrir is friends with Tyr, in essence. Tyr is friends with Fenrir. Tyr is treating Fenrir, Tyr is dealing with Fenrir, Tyr talks to him, engages with him. This is a good idea. It actually works out pretty well. I mean, there's no issues that we know of between Fenrir and Tyr, they seem to be buddies in some sense. The gods then demand that you betray him and you know, do all the stuff,
00:15:46
Speaker
Tyr agrees to do it, loses his hand. In doing that, they sort of set Odin's fate. By locking away with an invisible thread wrapped around Fenrir, they have bound him, and they have tried to push him out. They have tried to get rid of him, but without dealing with him. He's not dead. He's just stuck. And he's still there? Yeah, he's still there waiting.
00:16:10
Speaker
So you've pushed it down, you've gotten rid of it as much as you can and then years and years later suddenly pops up again and it bites you really hard and kills you. More importantly, it kills your family. So that for me is like really poignant. It makes sense to say Fenrir is the shadow in this context. That's who he is as an archetype. He's something you don't deal with, something you avoid.
00:16:30
Speaker
And in Odin's case, it's probably this fear he has of death that he is avoiding. But Tyr is welcoming to it. And this is where I find the symbology of Tyr losing his hands interesting. Because I believe he loses his first hand to Fenrir when he gets it bitten off. Tyr faces his destiny, but loses his hands.
00:16:49
Speaker
Odin does not face his destiny, really, and ends up dying. Although Tyr has lost his ability to will himself through life by surrendering to the fact that there are parts of him that he has to deal with, he has gained something for it. A peace, almost, in a sense. But he loses his will. Whereas Odin keeps his will, but he dies as a result of wanting to keep it in the first place.
00:17:11
Speaker
There's other ways to read it, but for me, that's the story there, the moral, if you like, is don't try to hold too tightly to this thing. Don't try to not deal with it. Because, yeah, you may lose your hands, you may lose your will, your ability to determine your destiny if you accept these parts if you aren't going away.
00:17:29
Speaker
because when you chain it and it's not going away it is sitting back there growing and growing and growing to the point where when Ragnarok comes it's said that his jaw stretches from the ground up to the sky so this this now this massive thing that you cannot overcome it will overpower you i think these stories are like almost accidentally commenting on these topics though i don't think anyone i don't think storysellers were sat there thinking yeah i'm going to write some young in psychology a few hundred years earlier i think i think it's more
00:17:54
Speaker
you know, these are elements of stories that Jung has noticed and is very much noticed as part of human psychology as well.
Ragnarok: Destruction and Renewal
00:18:00
Speaker
For however many heathens there are, that's how many different perspectives you're going to get on Ragnarok. Like you have a conversation with literally anybody, everybody's going to have different ideas. And so we'll definitely unpack that a little bit later. But you know, so we have these we have these giant clashes between these forces. And
00:18:23
Speaker
There's also like, this, this, it not only speaks to the, to the twilight of the gods, right? But it's also saying like the destruction of the world itself. We're seeing the sun turn black, the stars vanish, the stars are gone. Does it say they fall into the sea? I can't remember. Something like that. Things are not good. Yeah, definitely not good. I think things are tragic.
00:18:46
Speaker
Things are bad. Brother fights brother, fires, earthquakes, there's all sorts of things. But then after all of this, after we see
00:18:56
Speaker
this clash of these huge horses, there is once again the rebirth. There's a new beginning. And from the ashes of Ragnarok, this new world appears, and it's all bright and shiny and happy, and there's said to be two human survivors. Now, this is something that people take quite literally, but I never have, simply, and it just is because of their names. Their name is Leaf,
00:19:25
Speaker
And I'm sure I'm saying that wrong. I think you're saying that right. But like, so that the first name is life. And then the second name is like the struggle or strive for life.
00:19:37
Speaker
I think it's lover of life is what I know it as, but that sounds right too. I'm not sure, I'm not a fluent speaker of old books. No, no, God no, me either. But like that concept though of that, whatever it is that's making the drive for existence, you're seeing those two things paired and that is kind of the continuation. That's what's required for the continuation of humankind. I just, I cannot imagine not seeing the symbology and all of the things of this story, like to just see it at surface level.
00:20:06
Speaker
The idea that fear overtakes Odin or this being that he created himself and tried to shovel, he overtakes him and then is healed. I'm also seeing this healing. It's kind of like your next generation heals the trauma that you experienced before. And it doesn't have to be through this big grand weapon, this big grand army that you were trying to set yourself up. Because Odin is the chief of the gods. Odin has a spear that never misses. And then his son comes in with a fucking boot and takes care of business. You know what I mean? So it's just like,
00:20:37
Speaker
And then looking at the transformative process of fire, like we're looking at all these forces of destruction coming at the things that we know as order and structure.
00:20:48
Speaker
And it's not just destruction. Like, we're literally looking at the transformation. It's the burning away, the letting go of that for something new to emerge. You cannot deny that that's there in this story.
Cyclical Themes in Mythology
00:21:03
Speaker
The sun and the stars, everything winking out for me, personally, that is speaking to
00:21:12
Speaker
the enlightenment of the human journey, right? Like this is a common theme in story where light and stars and illumination literally means the illumination within the mind, like your knowledge, your wisdom, your learning. And with that eclipse of those lights going out and going dim, like plunging the world into darkness is like, to me, it's kind of speaking of
00:21:36
Speaker
getting to a place where we have forgotten that, but then we start building it back up again. There are things that we forget. There's things that history repeats itself. There's lessons we don't learn. Even in our own personal lives, if we don't learn a lesson, we do see the cycle repeat until we fucking get it. It's very normal for that to happen though. It's very normal that people forget things about what happened in the past and don't apply the lessons because there is no cohesive identity that is long lasting. It is a collection of individuals.
00:22:05
Speaker
kind of leads towards the problem of like there are distinctive modes of thought and it's in you it's not something that you grow with or something that's socialized into you it is it is something that you are innately prone to doing that is nurtured or not nurtured and that's that's kind of my perspective to it so i've often described my faith as cognitive faith i don't literally believe that odin is an entity sitting somewhere and observing things i think of him as as a characterization
00:22:32
Speaker
of a particular type of person and an idea. Same with all the other gods. So you'll meet an Odin, you'll meet a Thor, you'll meet a Frege or Frege, etc. And for someone like me, that's particularly helpful, because it's just, you know, I can, I can entune myself to that concept. And it makes it easy to deal with people. It's like, I've met you before. So like, why would I be worried about meeting you again? Just a nice wholesome connection. Yeah, I like that.
00:22:53
Speaker
For me, though, that was the first clue to step back a bit more and say, well, from a deconstructionist or deconstructivist perspective, what does this story embody? What is it trying to give to people? What is it translating in terms of feeling, in terms of evocation? Was it aiming to get used to think? And I think the point of the Ragnarok ending, the what comes after, with the inclusion of Liefenle-Fracier and Neithogre and so forth, these different things persist
00:23:22
Speaker
These things are eternal. These things don't go away. These things will always be here in our world. So it's like, these are intrinsic to humans is what I would take away from that. They're trying to say that no matter what society you have, you get these things. Something new comes after it. It has a life, it dies, and another one comes again, and this will always be happening. We have Ask an Embler in the beginning, and then our ending, we have Leif and Lithracia to start it over again.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I think it's poignant to remember that when this was more of a practice in Europe in general, when this was more of a thing, when tree worship was still going on, when we had coins with Odin in the fifth century, I think, to the 10th century period.
00:24:06
Speaker
That's what we're trying to aim for. That time period, for me, sticks out as a really self-aware time period. They seem to have a consciousness about the fragility of their existence, at least in their poetry. And I think that's because, well, really, these are sort of the people who came after, you know, Rome had been a thing for such a long time, to the extent that they copied some of their tactics or they maintained some of their tactics. They kept some things.
00:24:34
Speaker
You know, the concepts survive and keep going, even if certain other things take a dip and other things come up as well. This is a, this is a beautiful snapshot of human history where we have a self aware moment I think is all because
00:24:49
Speaker
what happens in every society is pretty obvious. Our society is currently going through it, I think. The civilization ends in some fashion, and then another one has to come up out of it as a result of necessity. Because it's not like people disappear. Rome may have fallen, the walls may have crumbled, but people are still around, so they need to do something. So you make a new one, and you start again. And I think that's as beautiful as a contradiction almost to this finite ending presented in other mythologies, which is not to say they're bad, just that I don't find them as fun.
00:25:18
Speaker
Right, no, and it doesn't make sense because to me, and this is kind of always why this, the way that they capture the cyclical nature of life, the universe, everything, literally everything that is woven into the structure of everything, that there is no beginning and end. Every conclusion is a new beginning. You cannot separate the two. You really can't. No. Because nothing just ceases. There's always just something coming from it.
00:25:44
Speaker
Well, what is destruction, but another form of creation? If I burn something, I've not destroyed it. I've transformed it. I've changed it. If I pick up a rock and throw it across a lake to the other side of the lake and break another rock, technically speaking, you could argue that I've created two smaller rocks, you know, and did a cool trick in the process. So I created some beauty. So it's like creation and destruction for me.
00:26:09
Speaker
they're obviously going to be bound in a symbiosis in every mythology i think i don't think there's anyone that doesn't have that kind of a concept as far as i'm aware where they are enemies in a sense that's like not cyclical or symbiotic yeah it's it's it's a really good characterization i think of the yin-yang concept this you know light and darkness go together you can call them creation or destruction or any other bimodal sort of concept it'll work
00:26:34
Speaker
But that's how humans work. I don't know. It's very... What's the word? Evocative of animistic concepts. The idea that everything has a unique life. Everything is individual in its own way. A rock has life. And then we see studies that demonstrate that minerals actually trend towards greater complexity over time, much like living things do, which is kind of a cool, natural... It's fascinating. ...more thing to see, you know? Emergence of complex ideas. Yes. If you wanted to talk about other cultures, I'm pretty happy to touch on some of them.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yes, please, actually. And that's that's the one thing that when we were planning for this episode, when you started getting into it, I was like, oh, shit, this is going to be a great conversation because not a lot of people, at least not. OK, I won't say not a lot of people if from my lens, from my from where I sit. Right. And the people that I speak with every day, the people that I work with every day, not a lot of people will look outside of the Norse cosmos. I mean, me included. Right. Not a lot of that has drawn my interest. And there's so much here.
00:27:32
Speaker
that I'm still here in a decade later. Like I have never left here just cause I can never stop learning. There's never an end, right? And I'm just fucking fascinated by all of it. But you have, you have a much broader,
00:27:45
Speaker
lens of the world and different cultures and the human psyche in general, right? A little bit, to an extent. I think it's because I've studied psychology to an extent, like in Jungian terms and in other similar stuff, like that's why I know a little bit about other places and other conceptualizations. But it's also just a special interest thing. I'm fascinated by mythologies because they tell such fantastic stories about neurology, I think.
00:28:06
Speaker
You can tell a lot about a culture in terms of what the psychology of the time was, what the norm was by what is accepted as normal in terms of religion. And it's very difficult to do that as a hobby, I think, just because you can't really look at people's brains in the past. It's not doable when looking at story and noting that there is an interaction between those two things, those two phenomenon.
00:28:33
Speaker
one influences the other and the other influences it back. There's an interactivity between them. So stories shape us, we shape stories, we are slightly different from each other and we do that in different ways. This causes a beautiful tapestry of complexity, but also gives us some general trends to look at.
Universal Myths and Cultural Narratives
00:28:49
Speaker
yes usually there's some form of like world ending event like at least in terms of like if it's not in future reference it's always in recent reference or past reference sorry rather um like flood myths are pretty ubiquitous i think like most most cultures have a flood myth of some kind um the story of the seven sisters uh the pleiades that's a story that's been told for possibly a hundred thousand years um this is quite a cool one actually um so i don't know if you're familiar are you familiar with the seven sisters the pleiades no i'm not actually
00:29:19
Speaker
Okay, so it's a constellation, is all you really know. It's a constellation of seven stars. However, to the naked eye, you can only see six. And in the stories, one of the sisters is missing or dead, depending on which version you read. Now, this is interesting because it's like, well, how did people know that there were seven before, you know, that we had telescopes and things before we could see there were seven? Because two of the stars are very close together now.
00:29:46
Speaker
in terms of like where they line up so they look like one light to the naked eye so that's why you need a telescope to see two of them to see the seventh but how did they know before that is the interesting thing well there is a time in history where you could have seen them as seven because they hadn't drifted close together yet you know when that would have been a hundred thousand years ago oh my goodness
00:30:06
Speaker
Yeah. Right? That's fucking wild. Me. So the Epic of Gilgamesh is just the first thing we have written down in terms of a complete story. That's seven or eight thousand years ago from the top of my head there. I'm guessing that.
00:30:17
Speaker
But like, we've been telling stories for a long time, a long, long time. There are cave paintings that show animals and stuff that have been dead for like 50,000 or 40,000 years or something. But they're done by humans. So we were around at the same time, presumably. It's very entertaining to think about humans in the last 300,000 years being the same anatomical shape
00:30:42
Speaker
like having the same brain having the same stuff going on basically so why wouldn't you tell similar stories what if story is innate what if it's built into you know what if it's a consequence of the bits that we are the world that we have and the brain that we have because of this stuff we have the same storytelling modes every single time to embody permanent concepts like the sun rises and falls every single night every single day that's just the way it works that's never going away humans will always be depressed sometimes
00:31:11
Speaker
humans will always have problems. Some humans lose their minds. You know, it doesn't ever change for humans, really. That's right. Because I was I guess where my brain was going is our other apocalyptic stories. Are they this story of like, is there usually like a renewal and rebirth after? Or is it more of a it's an apocalypse story to
00:31:38
Speaker
to create fear, you know what I mean? Or like create a system of behavior.
00:31:44
Speaker
I think all religions in an organised fashion are kind of designed by humans to elicit a certain type of behaviour, because they set a social standard, usually, in some essence. I mean, you could look at systems where there is no necessary ending or apocalyptic event. I mean, I don't know off the top of my dome again much about Buddhism and its various flavours. There's quite a lot of different types of Buddhist, it turns out.
00:32:10
Speaker
But the idea of like the karmic cycle for example is like you don't you don't find an ending there it sort of it keeps going again and again and again and I think of again off top my dome not my expertise but Eastern religions as a whole tend to have some sort of cyclical nature to this.
00:32:26
Speaker
But I don't know if that's like specific to that area of the world, or if that is something again, like inherent to a lot of humans, because you find that mostly in pagan religions, that there is some concept of movement that does not change. Whereas it's the monotheistic religions that tend to have a very, there is an ending to this story, there is an end that has to come.
00:32:47
Speaker
and something happens. It can vary though but even that has variation like I don't think judaists have I don't think I've ever gotten a clear answer from a rabbi or a jewish person about what the the afterlife is supposed to be or look like necessarily. It's more of a it's not something they think about too often is what is what I've been told is what I get tend to get the response of but many people have different conceptualizations of it even within those communities so the problem of like
00:33:16
Speaker
What is the ending in the story? It's like, well, which story are you telling? Because you get a different answer each time. But the pattern of cycles seems to be a pagan idea, seems to be this. And that makes sense when you think about why you would have multiple gods in the first place. You want something that represents the actual world in a symbolic way.
00:33:38
Speaker
yes you can't my extent of mythology understanding is really to bolster my psychological stuff like i use these metaphors and symbols as a way of understanding people um i think it's like a it's like a sneaky doorway into their minds when you understand what people believe you understand how they function you understand what their perspective of the world is it's not just the little things it's the big things most of the christians that i've met for example uh
00:34:03
Speaker
they can be nice or they can be not nice like everyone can be but they all share certain ideas about how to navigate their life lots of them feel a need for purpose and meaning that is more abstract you know there is a there is a story that is being told with them at the center or they're being dragged along it in some way but it's direct it's linear you know you're going to heaven you're going to hell you're going to here or there
00:34:26
Speaker
Whereas the pagan perspective, neo-pagan more specifically here, now seems to be more broad. It seems to be you go wherever you go is quite common, or you go where you deserve to go. Sorry, you go where you not deserve to go, but where you are appropriate to. It's like if you're a farmer in life,
00:34:44
Speaker
when you die and if you've done nothing special you're a farmer again that's that's fine if you're a viking and you go die in a heroic battle you get a coin flipped for your life and then one of the two take you if you were good enough you know odin or freya takes you right um but you know if you're in a karmic cycle you you do something particularly bad you die you become a slug you lay a perfect trail of slime you get to move up the chain again and maybe you just reincarnate into a human perhaps and it's just humans that get that done to them which raises the question is like well does that ever have an ending
00:35:13
Speaker
And it's like, well, no, but would you expect it to have an ending really? Would it make sense that humans' psychological ideas, which are really abstract ideas, would they ever go away as long as humans existed? I don't think so. They're fixed. They stay with us.
Interpretations of Norse Mythology
00:35:29
Speaker
I absolutely agree. I think that that's an interesting thing, too. When we're talking about the afterlife and Ragnarok, even, that's a common question. This is a common string of questions when you're talking with heathens is this idea, and this is why I wanted to get into, you know, modern heathen interpretation, which I'm just going to kind of jump ahead into that because it's a conversation. What the string of questions we most often get or I most often get is
00:35:58
Speaker
the literalist approach, right? Where it's like, you know, Ragnarok has not happened yet because we haven't seen the earth fall into the sea. We haven't seen these cataclysmic events. The sun is still in the sky, so Ragnarok hasn't happened. They see it as a very literal apocalyptic scenario. They're waiting for the fimble winter. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Which, I mean, technically, and this, we'll get into it. But like, if they are waiting for this literal apocalypse,
00:36:28
Speaker
It's fascinating to me because it does kind of ring to me of these monotheistic religions where it's like, what is the point of the end then? Like, are they still focused on this life and what they do with their community? Or is it more of that, like,
00:36:51
Speaker
fatalist way of thinking where it's like, I've got to do all of this before the world ends. I've got to do good. I've got to be good. You know what I mean? Because the end is coming. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, particularly. I just find it really interesting to be literal with it.
00:37:06
Speaker
I'd agree. I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it can be a very good thing, potentially. But, I mean, this is the crux of what I'm curious about in psychology and why I have... This is going to sound like a non sequitur and I do apologize. It's not. It's very much related to what you're saying. But this is why my focus is on things like ADHD and autism. In the context of the prophecy of Ragnarok, of the Veluspa, and the characters we see in this first presentation to Norse mythology, you could think most people are going to see that first.
00:37:36
Speaker
you are given a full range of characters of individuals who are different in multiple beautiful ways, and you are being told that everything is a cycle, everything is a metaphor, everything has double meaning, everything is kind of poetic and fluid, a kenning is popular to be used, you know, you're going to twist words around and be clever about it. I'm not telling you literally what things are, but I am illustrating what things are still.
00:38:01
Speaker
this concept of autism is new to us as a word, but in terms of what it is, that concept of a person who is not quite like other people, a person who is more individual, who is different, who is more akin to Loki perhaps, is there and has been there the entire time. And it's not going away, it's part of the cycle. So whatever interactions we have between ourselves, for whatever reason we have them,
00:38:27
Speaker
I think all of it's natural. I think all of it's expected. I think we just don't necessarily think of it as expected, because we have a weird perspective. Well, I mean, is it weird? I feel like it's a learned perspective, though. But that is weird, isn't it? Like, most people don't question, though, or are in perspectives. Yeah. Everyone could say that. It's quite a popular thing to point out. It's like, do you question yourself? Do you introspect? Do you meditate? It's like, most people don't. But then again, most people aren't autistic.
00:38:53
Speaker
That's also hard for me to grasp because most of the people that I, and again, I'm looking through an extremely small lens, right? I'm only looking through my own personal lens. Most of the people that are around me, that stay around me, are people that are comfortable with me and have similar patterns as me. So like, I'm like, most people are allistic? How?
00:39:13
Speaker
Well, this is the thing. You've cultivated a friendship group. And this is known that ADHD and autistic people gather together in spaces like this.
Personal Connections to Norse Paganism
00:39:20
Speaker
This is a community space. And like I'm saying, there might be an attraction for these individuals in this specific sub-niche, like the half of the wild itself might be a particular attractor for these individuals. And maybe you, as a person, because you're central to it, because you have some of these traits, perhaps, who knows, are attracted to those individuals as well. And that's why you sort of gather together.
00:39:39
Speaker
i mean it's it's not exactly rocket science um there are clicks of people in schools that gather together that's just normal why would why would you not uh go by your vibe and your tribe it's the safest possible way to do things yeah the difference is are you a collection of individuals or are you a group so i'm just sort of trying to illustrate it's like are you a norse pagan and you are
00:40:01
Speaker
part of Norse paganism because you are a Norse pagan, that is your identity and that's it? Or is it that there's something about you that likes Norse paganism because of how it relates to you in a personal way? So did you like Lord of the Rings? Did you like Tolkien's work overall? Did you like reading Tolkien's work?
00:40:18
Speaker
Did you enjoy Icelandic history? Do you enjoy Finnish history or Scandinavian history? Do you enjoy Roman history and then find yourself moving through to Viking history and then into paganism? Everyone comes at this from a different angle and I think that's what gives it away that this is not a group identity. This is a collection of individuals. There's a different reason they're all together and it's probably as simple as
00:40:41
Speaker
I like you, and I'd like to hang out with you, and I enjoy your company, versus I'm part of this group, so I'm going to stay in this group. Does that make sense as a difference? Oh, it absolutely does. It absolutely does. And I see a bit of both. I see a bit of both, but far less of just I'm Norse pagan, and so we are all Norse pagans together. Everyone's going to spin. Everyone's got a different thing about it, haven't they? I don't want to bring up any individuals in particular. I want to call it one out or anything. But for me, for example, I'm interested in it because I'm interested in psychology.
00:41:10
Speaker
just like you can come at this from any perspective and it works because these poems are illustrating life so everyone's involved there's a representation for every person that works out nicely yeah absolutely and i wonder i've never really thought about why i'm into it i think that it's um i think that for me it's more of the
00:41:32
Speaker
I feel like so much has been lost in the evolution of our society since the Archheathens. And I crave that connection. I crave the connection to the structure of the universe, to the cycles of nature, to
00:41:49
Speaker
to the spirit of nature itself, you know, to the connection with the cosmos with the order of things with the chaos of things like I want to, I want to understand the deep
00:42:04
Speaker
comprehension and connectivity that my ancestors had with the forces that be. You know what I mean? Like, I've always been drawn to that. I've always kind of had an animistic worldview where, like, I recognize that the energy of the mountains is different than the energy of this river. There are different things to me. There are different beings to me. Yeah, no, I agree fully. That's my experience as well, that there is an essence to different stuff in nature. You know,
00:42:34
Speaker
A mountain is always quite stoic. I think everyone gets that. Everyone feels that, that a mountain is unmoving in its characteristics. It may not be living, but it is alive in quality. The leaves in a tree can dance, even though they are not living. Well, they are living, but like, you know, different kind of living. I suppose.
00:42:53
Speaker
I would agree. But like clouds, clouds can be alive, skies can be alive, people can be alive even when they're dead if you tell their story well enough. So it's, I feel like that's always going to be true. And maybe you're right that that attraction of like, giving a meaning to things, giving a relationship rather to everything, everything moves together, you know,
00:43:15
Speaker
the rock is on the stream or in the stream, the salmon can't get past the rock, the beaver picks up a tree, starts making a dam, gets in the way, the rock shunts when the dam breaks because there's enough force, the fish can get moving again, everything's going, it's like there's stories that play out without any human interaction. It's interesting to think about how people interpret the story, that a lot of questions that come up, you know, has Ragnarok happened, will it happen again?
Ragnarok as Metaphor for Transformation
00:43:38
Speaker
There's the people that will relate it to
00:43:41
Speaker
to their own, kind of like we were talking about, their own psychological and personal growth, their own understanding of their own struggles, the way that their brain works, the way that their life works, they're seeing their own personal Ragnarok. And that is kind of in
00:43:57
Speaker
Everything is a cycle. Everything. Everything has a beginning, a culmination, you know, and then an ending and a beginning again to something new. Something new comes from that and that happens over and over and over in our lives on different levels too. That can be, you know, we're looking at the layers of our life. We're looking at
00:44:15
Speaker
not just our life, spam, right? But we're also looking at the experiences, your relationships, your connections, your financial struggles, your career, the things that you study, everything, every single thing, every aspect of your life, you could go through that cycle.
00:44:33
Speaker
more than once. You could have that the creation of this thing, the spark, the seed, the growth, the instability and the restability and then the falling apart and something new comes from that. That is how that works.
00:44:47
Speaker
in everything, in everything. And so like looking at it from a personal growth standpoint, you know, like the themes of Ragnarok being a metaphor for your personal trials or overcoming demons or becoming stronger through growth and experience.
00:45:04
Speaker
I would say you could use it that way because like I've said, you could use neurology, personal individual differences to sort of extrapolate big concepts and why people have those bigger concepts. For Ragnarok, it's a metaphor for me at least of the ending of one civilization transitioning into another, but you could do that with people as well. I'm sure that many people will empathize with this concept. It's a bit personal, but I would often say to my friends and stuff, like if I've reinvented myself, it doesn't feel like I've reinvented myself. It feels like I've died.
00:45:31
Speaker
and someone else has taken over from where I left off. You know, someone else fills the spot and I grow into something new that replaces what has been lost. Every seven years, you replace most of your cells in your body, things like that. You have to refresh and renew. But to do that requires death. And I think the story of Ragnarok has got kind of comforting, because it's like death is not some scary thing. Death is not something that is going to cause you any harm, actually. It's not in the long run.
00:46:00
Speaker
right it might hurt someone you know personally to you it might be something that is happening around you your society your family your life might be ending but something else comes after it so don't panic about it too much the story is not over it's just that your turn is done now right and
00:46:16
Speaker
I love the this sort of clash and conflict of the new and the old in the ending of Ragnarok in regards to Vidar and how he uses that big leather boot to push into Fenrir's mouth and rip his jaw off. Very very poetic imagery I think, very violent imagery rather sorry, but beautiful at the same time.
00:46:37
Speaker
some King Kong level stuff. It's like broke his jaw off. Okay, cool. I'm down with that. That's pretty metal. But the sort of interrelationship, it's not just about one form of life. It's about multiple forms of life intersecting and interacting. Boulder coming back from the dead is the big one here towards the end. But it makes sense if we're thinking of Snorri Sturluson and his Christianization sort of period and like thinking
00:47:04
Speaker
Well, maybe Boulder might be Jesus. Maybe you snuck that kind of in there a little bit to an extent. You could argue that Boulder is kind of influenced by Jesus as a thing. You could argue that. You could. That isn't a problem. Because maybe that's what maybe that's what they were talking about. Maybe that was the point. It's like we anticipate that the Christians are actually going to win. We anticipate that's going to come next.
Cultural Symbolism Interplay
00:47:22
Speaker
I think that that's where people draw. And this is where I'm looking at people looking at the story of Ragnarok through a historical perspective, too.
00:47:30
Speaker
they are drawing that and being like oh well Ragnarok then is a symbol of Norse paganism dying and then Christianity coming into play and this new beginning and this new Adam and Eve being the first two or you know what I mean like having that whole story like
00:47:48
Speaker
come from this ending of the pagan traditions. It's almost, I think it's more beautiful to think of Christianity and Norse paganism as part of the same family overall of storytelling if you like, but also rivals, brothers if you want. Obviously I'm attracted to that poetic imagery for a reason, but like two brothers who are fighting and arguing with each other
00:48:14
Speaker
but they filter and affect each other. They sort of rub off on one another in little ways. And it's nice to see that happen. I often romanticize talking about York in the Viking age and at a certain period of time when coins with Viking symbology and Christian symbology. So you can see there's a sword, right? And you can position it so there's a cross, but you can also do it that way. So you can see Thor's hammer, or you can turn it upside down, and you can see that kind of to extend as well.
00:48:42
Speaker
And, like, you see this mix of symbology between Christians and pagans, because both of them were hanging around each other. They were talking to each other. They were working together. It was regular stuff at that point, and they just had to put up with each other, and they got used to it, and it affected the culture. Now, it's swinging back. Modern paganism is overtaking a lot of stuff, and in England, specifically, sorry, the UK rather, more specifically, I think paganism has risen by 34%, and shamanism is at, like, 40%.
00:49:13
Speaker
People underestimate, I think, Ragnarök's utility as a metaphor. You can take it literally, if you want, you can use it to paint history. The Aesir Van Eyre War is involved and related to this concept.
00:49:27
Speaker
One could argue there was a period of time when the sacred feminine transitioned into becoming the sacred masculine. This distinction of matriarchal nature-based religions and tree worship shifting into higher quote-unquote gods and concepts of war and sky and storm, you know? Which of course has no relation to
00:49:46
Speaker
the Canaanite god being a storm god and called Yahweh. No relation at all. I think I see what you're getting at here. It's all kind of rubbing off on each other in different ways at different times. It's like, where do the smudges begin and where do the smudges end? I take it all as one story. I'm an ominous. It's all the same stuff.
00:50:04
Speaker
there is there is a greater human story for certain but these versions of the stories tell us about people they don't have to be argued i think as like even if you take it as a historical thing it's like well we just have different perspectives on history then i guess that's fine and and we don't need to to fight about it so literally as much as it's fun to argue and discuss and talk about the different kind of ideas that the similarities the differences why are we different that's a more interesting question than you are different and i'm going to argue about it with you it's
00:50:34
Speaker
There's a lot to learn about growth, I think, from Ragnarok as a metaphor. I think so too. I absolutely think so too. And I agree with you. I agree that people are, people get a little too caught up in being right, rather than exploring what could be, right? They get their understanding, they get this lens that they look through, and then it kind of stays there. And it kind of
00:50:56
Speaker
it grows, it calcifies, it grows like almost unhealthy sometimes, where I wish that they would kind of like bust through that, bust through that stagnation and explore a little bit deeper and ask why and ask how and ask, kind of try to apply it to different things, try to apply the symbology, because it is a tragedy to me when people are reading the lore
00:51:21
Speaker
and only seeing surface level, and they're not seeing the symbology, they're not seeing the metaphor. It tells me that they're missing the art, they're missing the poetry piece, right? And that is what it is, and it's genius too, it's genius. I think it's feeling sorrow that someone doesn't get the experience you do out of reading it, which makes you feel good. So it's like, I feel bad that you don't get to feel that. It's not that I want you
00:51:46
Speaker
to believe this as I believe it and see it as I see it it's that I know that because you don't see it the same way you're not going to feel the same way as me and that's a shame because I think this is quite beautiful as a piece of art as well that's exactly what it is thank you and I'm like I hope I don't I hope I'm not coming across as like you're not doing it that way I feel bad for you you know what I mean like that's never one
00:52:06
Speaker
I don't think
Understanding Mythology Through Diverse Lenses
00:52:08
Speaker
that's what you do. Because there's merit in the way that they think too. Because the way that they think is a catalyst to opening doors for me. Because I like to question my beliefs, I like to question why I believe the things that I believe and where that came from. And them having their own perspective lends to me exploring mine too, you know, and I love that for me.
00:52:27
Speaker
But yeah, I hope that it didn't come across as healing. I think it did. I think we can agree, both of us, that it's more interesting having different types of people with different perspectives in the first place. So these people offer me an opportunity. These people offer me the opportunity to be a better person by listening to them and hearing them out and saying, well, why do you think of it literally? Because I don't think of it that way, and I'd like to know how you think about that.
00:52:49
Speaker
I have met people who are very much the literalist POV. How so though? How do you literalize the creation of the universe with Gununga Gap and Muspelheim and Niflheim? How do you conceptualize that as anything other than like a metaphor for
00:53:08
Speaker
Well, basically the Big Bang is kind of what I take as an explosive release of something caused the beginning of the universe. And then you can consider that. I actually drew the parallels in a previous episode. It was very fun to explore. Probably where I've got that from.
00:53:23
Speaker
No, it's super cool. I definitely see the symbology, the metaphor, the allegory, and all of the stories, but I do have a sense of literalism, I suppose you could call it, because I also see them as beings, very much so. It's kind of a blend of both. I'm not a lore literalist by any means.
00:53:45
Speaker
But I definitely see them as beings, whether that's an embodiment of a force or a high supernatural being. It's hard for me to conceptualize, really. But I think that that's what lends to my ability to speak with both camps and have the conversations with both camps, because I see both of it. Like I see both sides, where these are, like some people will actually see Odin as this
00:54:09
Speaker
this deity sitting in the high seat, sleep scalp up in the, up in Asgard and like looking down upon the world. And you know what I mean? And nothing is.
00:54:17
Speaker
nothing is metaphor. Nothing is symbology. These are stories that they believe the gods came to earth and told us. And then there's, you know, people who see it entirely as just, you know, metaphorical symbols for the powers that be, the natural forces, the concepts, right? And so I kind of get the blend of both, because it's kind of like I told you, like, I've always felt the energy of different things. And so that's entirely just my own
00:54:46
Speaker
uh my own understanding of how the world works and how how energy works and how um things are their own beings that my animist perspective comes in uh but yeah it's a it's interesting it's very interesting this is this is a struggle for me especially because so like i've said earlier i believe i have something called cognitive faith which is not really a term that i've seen thrown around too much
00:55:09
Speaker
just to recap, I don't literally believe in these entities, right? But at what point does a metaphor become real? If you believe in owning this literal entity, then you sort of have to justify his characteristics as well. It's like, so he literally did all the things he did and you're following him?
00:55:24
Speaker
It's fine if you believe, like, ah, you know, that he's more nuanced than that. Like, every individual's got a story or something like that. There are some things I would find unforgivable. There are some things I would find unforgivable that Odin has done, perhaps. Only in the context of a literal entity. But if it's a metaphor, it's like, that's more forgivable. If it's a metaphor that holds true in some way.
00:55:40
Speaker
like it's not real but it is real it's living in front of the mountain is real loki is real he's right there in front of you that's what he is in part and there's i don't know for me that's more beautiful and more interesting not to again not to diminish the literal perspective it's just i need the explanation from someone who believes it of like oh what how do you believe that though how does that work because what are the rules with that that's interesting but i can't i can't see that you know
00:56:06
Speaker
Right. Let me ask you something. Because now I'm curious. Now I'm curious. Because, like I said, I'm a blend of both. I've got a blend of both. When you are... Okay, let me ask you this. Do you venerate the gods? Like, do you make offerings? Do you do sacrifice? Do you venerate? And if you do... Well, I'll let you answer the first part of that question.
00:56:28
Speaker
So do I venerate the gods? To an extent, yeah. So I will sit at my piano, and my altar is on top of my piano, and I will, when I'm alone at least, will play music, or will sing, or will do poetry readings or something at that piano, using Odin as the focus, sort of like reading poetry, if that's who I'm trying to talk to at the time, if that makes sense.
00:56:50
Speaker
And for me, the meta-context is it's an exercise. It's meditation. I need to think about a concept and I need advice. Who is going to give me the best advice? And it's almost like...
00:57:02
Speaker
Again, this sounds quite hacky. It's a very haphazard sort of way of phrasing this as a metaphor. But like, it's like you have an AI in your head and you're constructing the AI that is most appropriate to what your needs are in that moment. So if I need advice about women, I'm going to talk to Odin because he's dealt with a lot of women. If I need advice about sport, I'm going to talk to Thor. If I need advice about who I am in the world, I might talk to Loki to get some perspective about, you know,
00:57:27
Speaker
where that's coming from. Not that they're talking back, but I'm using them as a device to talk to so that I can feel better about something or I can contextualize something or I can enable another way of thinking through an imagined partner almost. But to say they're not real at the same time feels inaccurate because they are real. I feel this experience is literally something that happens to me and overtakes me. There is a emotional religious experience that occurs.
00:57:52
Speaker
But I don't logically believe that they are real things, they're not living entities, they're ideas. It's not physical, it's abstract, so you can't really approximate what people are going to do in the future with it. It's not a consistent domain.
00:58:11
Speaker
But when I'm sitting there in my piano and when I'm playing my songs and reading my poems and stuff, I do feel Odin. I feel that presence of a character who is observing from afar, who is elderly, who has lived their life already and is very wise.
Odin as a Source of Wisdom
00:58:26
Speaker
They've made lots of mistakes and they're not a perfect person.
00:58:29
Speaker
But they appreciate the knowledge you are looking towards. They appreciate the thirst for things, the love of life itself. And almost this resilience that Odin embodies where he is like Loki. They both have a pretty cursed fate. But at the same time, they're different in how they approach that fate. And Odin has this, I'm going to probably fail, but I'm going to try anyway and just have fun with it as best I can. I don't know. That's the way I think about that particular God.
00:58:59
Speaker
I don't invoke them as actual entities, you know? But equally, I mean, I would say the same thing about Jesus. I'd say the same thing about many other characters from many other mythologies. You could call me eclectic. I'd say Norse pagan, but I'm open to other gods existing because it's the same logic as mine.
00:59:14
Speaker
Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I appreciate you getting into that with me. I know that that can be a personal question, so I appreciate you being able to... Well, I enjoyed yourself. You're so articulate. I really just enjoy... I enjoy picking your brain. I like the way your brain works, and I like the way that you articulate your thoughts. It's fascinating to me. It sounds personal, but it's really just an observation of a problem where
00:59:35
Speaker
I can't really integrate with a lot of Norse-paying communities because I'm individually different from a lot of these communities. And my perspective is not unique. It's not alone, but it's not typical. And it's difficult to see how that works. So I try not to explain it most of the time. I try just not to talk about it because it's not really relevant to how I interact with other people. It's not like my beliefs aren't important to you, really. That's a personal thing. But our love of mythology, our love of this story, our love of these characters and our love of the culture that they grew out of,
01:00:04
Speaker
that is that is shared that is that's all we need really i think you know yeah i think so too and that's why i love these conversations i i personally like to to explore how people um connect with these beings and connect with the energies connect with the even just the idea the archetype kind of like you said um and that's why i was like wondering if there was some veneration process and i i love how you explained that because there would be people that argue that you know you cannot be um someone who
01:00:31
Speaker
sees everything as metaphorical and symbolic and still be a heathen. And I'm like, I disagree. And I feel like you just highlighted exactly why. And that's just, I mean, that's just one person's way of doing it and nobody's gonna be the same, but I appreciate it. I think it's important to remember that people back in these ages where these religions were more, I don't wanna say authentic, but they're more natural selves. It's just life. Yeah, they're more alive at that point.
01:01:01
Speaker
People who believed in those things weren't necessarily like Christians today in America, perhaps, where their religion is a very big focus of their life. It's like, you don't have enough time for that. You don't have enough time for that. You are busy surviving. So they probably weren't introspecting to a really extensive degree.
01:01:18
Speaker
they're probably just telling stories that appealed to them, and through that process, those stories tell you about them. It's kind of unavoidable. If I ask you to write about yourself, you'll probably write a bunch of stuff that tells me about you, even if it's not really what you think is related. You'll pour yourself into the pages without meaning to, and it's unavoidable. You bleed into the religion. You have to, right? You have to.
01:01:40
Speaker
I'm going to have to go, I think. Yeah, that's okay. Thank you so much. No, I appreciate you coming on here and talking with me about this, about the fucking, you know, the modern interpretations of it, the how it is embedded in the human psyche across culturally, if we're looking at the themes of it. Yeah, I think it's fascinating. And I think that there's never going to be an end to the questions or the conversations around it. And I love that for us, actually.
01:02:05
Speaker
fun of it, isn't it? It doesn't stop. It's it's cyclical keeps going. You've answered one question, you get seven more. Exactly. That's the beauty of it. Thank you so much for joining me on this. I really appreciate you. Likewise, likewise. Thank you very much. Have a nice night here. Yeah, thank you.
01:02:23
Speaker
You're listening to the Heart of Weird Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. And follow us on TikTok at Heart of Weird Podcast to stay up to date on all things heathenry. Every small interaction you have with us helps us grow, and we appreciate it so much.
01:02:42
Speaker
You can also email us directly with all of your heathenry questions at hearthpodcastteam at gmail.com. Be well, do heathen shit, and as always, thank you for listening.