What Odin Taught Me About Connection
Posted by Shirl Sazynski on 17
April 2014, Paths Blogs
Much
has been said eloquently elsewhere by others about a recent tragedy and what
Heathenry is actually based upon. I
thought it best, in my case, rather than repeating their fine words, to simply
write about what Odin is like as a person.
Odin is a God
of many, many things: wisdom, inspiration, exploration, shamanism, prophecy,
kingship, rune magic, language and expression, expanding and altering
consciousness, creativity, death, blood magic, self-sacrifice, and yes, even
warfare, savagery and bloodshed at times.
I'm writing a book about my
close relationship with Odin - patron of heroes, the God of story, wisdom and
magic - and what he's taught me directly as a spaekona (a seer/shaman).
This is one of the
chapters.
"Look wide, and look far. Look upon your city. This is your community. These are your people, all of them. The
people you know and the people you will never meet. Even the ones you don't like. Good or bad, rich or poor, status and class
and family don't matter. Politics don't matter. They're still all your people.
"You are a part of this, and your wyrd is tied
together, for as long as you live here..."
This was
not the lesson I thought Odin was teaching me, one unseasonably warm February
afternoon, when I climbed up into the Albuquerque foothills to get some
exercise and solitude. Usually, by
action more than words, he shows me the subtle ways of soul magic and healing,
of spae craft.
My hiking
lessons as a spaekona, a Norse
seer and shaman, started in November with Odin asking me, "What do you
see?"
I sense
more than see the King of Asgard, flickering impressions: hair the grey of a
heavy sky roils about his shoulders. A
wide-brimmed traveller's hat, tipped down over his face. Eyes clear and sharp, despite his apparent
age. There's a lean muscularity to how
he moves, even if I don't get a full mental image of his form. He looks nothing like a bass singer out of
Wagner.
The Old
Man, his voice jagged as a raven's croak, frequently walks by my side as I
explore the wild space overlooking the city. His lanky strides are far longer than mine —
for Odin is, as all the tales say, very tall — sometimes stepping a little
ahead of me, sometimes hanging back to look up at the broad azure sky, or down
at something I can't see. But mostly he
shares the dusty path with me, keeping pace as my steps crunch along.
Funny
that a God famous for being "one-eyed" and solitary would be the one
to teach me to look closer at my surroundings, and in so doing grow closer to
others.
What do you see?, has become a frequent question, inviting me to
stop climbing and sit on a warm, sunlit boulder or in the shade of a dry,
rocky, brush-covered slope. I usually
sip some water (a necessity in the desert) and catch my breath (the air up here
is very thin) as I pause to more deeply bond with my surroundings.
In answer
to that query, I've been amazed to see the energy trails that radiate up from
bristling cholla, ground-hugging patches of prickly pear and wind-carved
juniper after snowmelt. Bright,
flickering streamers, shimmering like a heat wave, lance both skyward and to
the ground in a straight line from their branches and leaves. I can't see auras. Couldn't, rather. They're subtle things, in my experience, very
close to the skin, not at all the psychedelic colour fields that New-agers and
Kirlian photography enthusiasts describe.
I think
for a moment that I'm seeing a retinal shadow — the almost glowing afterimage
burned by water-darkened trunks against a paler sky — but it doesn't follow the
shape of the trees, and it's gone when I look away from them.
Odin
shakes his head.
"That's
the joy of the plants," he says, smiling quietly (for he is, also, a lord
of green things in his youth). "They
don't feel it in the same way as humans, but they feel deeply, too. They take joy in the warmth of the sun on
their leaves and skin, the rain seeping into their roots, the taste of the soil
and damp air. And the joy of their
companions."
Who knew?
These
last few months, under his mentorship, I've learned how to spot the paths that
water takes down a mountain — not just by the physical grooves in the earth,
the lines of clean-washed rocks dotting the hillsides, or the twisting ropes of
greenery — but by seeing the energy trails, carrying a potent mix of the earth
and the sky's power with them. I don't
know how to describe it. It's not like
they glow or obviously stand out. The
eye is just drawn to them, in a quiet way, catches on them as you look across
the landscape.
They're
more present, somehow.
Most
supernatural things are like this, in my experience.
"Shhhh," Odin whispers, as my boot comes down and scrapes a
rock. "Stay very still."
No sound
warns me. Just his words.
I look up
carefully, sensing motion. First, a hint
of downy antlers and then a gray flank disappearing silently amid dry, sage
green brush above me.
"Ask
the Earth for permission to approach. And
the spirits of the deer. Thank Her and
ask to see the deer without frightening them."
Them? There's
more than one?
I kneel,
touching the gravel, and quietly leave an offering of water from my bottle.
"Crouch
down onto your hands and the balls of your feet." Is he playing a joke on me, promising a view
of more wildlife? His sense of humour is
wicked, and he's not above pranks — or playing the fool himself. In an area laced with cacti, the occasional
piece of broken glass and wickedly thorny goat head seeds, this is not an effortless
task and I choose my position carefully.
He waits.
"Stay
low to the ground and move forward quietly."
As I do
this, feeling the weight of my bag shift on my back, a change in consciousness
sweeps over me. I move my gloved hands
forward like paws, my knees bent and my head closer to the scent of the sand,
my limbs configured to carry my body in a way I don't expect — careful, gradual
movements.
And
delight that I feel like a stalking cat. My pulse quickens, despite the slow pace.
How far
do I climb like this, shifting from sand to scree to rock, paw over paw, knees
and belly held downward? Not far. But far enough. I stalk over a little ridge, to rock and
juniper, spotting faint cougar prints and pellets of old, grey deer spoor along
the way.
I am not
the only one to walk this path.
"Rise
slowly. Keep your head beneath the cover
of the bushes."
I am
excruciatingly aware, in this altered state, of each and every tiny sound I
make. My boots hissing on scree, the
creak as I grip the rough holly branches for support on the steep incline.
Fifty
feet. One Hundred.
I must be
near the buck now, I think. But I don't
see him.
A rustle.
My head does not snap up. I stay still, remembering Odin's words. A doe, nestled among the scrub hollies, walks
out into the open. More. A head. A flank. Four of them. A half-grown fawn, shaggy with its winter fur,
shadows its mother.
"Say
thank you. And move in slowly. You'll be able to watch them, now."
The deer
look up, ears pricking, sensing me.
"Don't
stare at them. Trust that they'll stay
there."
This part
is the hardest — so close, so close; I want so much to watch them. They're watching me.
"Thank
you," I say, quietly.
I hear
his wry, lopsided smile. "Believe
me now?"
I grin,
keeping the deer in my peripheral view as I approach. The herd shies away to another cluster of
bushes, but it doesn't bolt. One of them
— several does, in turn — always keeps an eye on me while the others cautiously
graze. I sit on a nearby rock, gently
lowering my backpack. Awed and thankful,
I watch them for an hour.
Surprisingly,
the herd is not led by the buck, so young his velvety antlers are sparsely
pronged, but by a larger, elder female. He
stands in the center of a loose circle, watchful but inexperienced, looking
from doe to doe in turn, as if he's still learning something. All the women seem to guard him.
I think
of the majestic stag, who is the sacrificial emblem of my God in his youth, as
Freyr. Another season under their watch,
and this buck just might become one.
One day, as I come up around a bend in a canyon, I feel
Odin grinning.
"Stop.
Look up."
Standing
in the shadow of a boulder, I see the massive stair steps of rock I longed to
climb with the steadying help of my staff.
"Up.
Uuuuuuuuup……."
I gasp.
Movement.
Horns scrape against the sky. But not physically.
Someone, his back turned to me, wades in
the deep, golden pool of sunlight formed by the sheltered hollow of the canyon.
And I mean wades. He's not sunbathing.
His head
is the size of a massive boulder. Shaggy
fur spills down between his shoulder blades, hair and mane, bison and man,
inseparable.
"Ask
if we can approach," Odin whispers.
Giant.
GIANT.
"Hell-lo!"
I venture, awkwardly, waving. (I'm
talking to a giant. Naked giant! This is not a trance!) "Am I bothering you? Can we keep going?"
The
Jotun, who I have met (but not seen naked), turns and blinks at me.
Looks at
me pointedly.
"I'm
bathing here."
"Oh.
Right. Errr…" I frown. There's no water here. "How are you doing that, sir?"
He smiles
down at me.
"In
the sun!"
And,
indeed… he is washing in the light, soaking up to his waist in it. Humming as he scoops it up and rubs it on his
skin, glittering.
He has a
good sense of humour, the Foothill Giant, but he still asked me to find another
way out of the canyon. So I had to climb
around him. Or up his physical body, the
adjacent hill. I'm not sure which.
Would you
like someone hanging around while you
took a bath?
As I walk
uphill, my back respectfully turned, the Giant calls out to me and asks for an
offering, and teaches me how to give one, in kind, for the local Earth itself:
water poured into the weathered hollow of a rock, spilling over, splashed three
times on the hot stone.
I thank
him and throw his share of my offering over my shoulder, without looking back.
Good
manners make good neighbours, after all.
A change
overtakes me that winter, as I become more
intimately aware of the land. I
frequently surprise doves and other birds along the trail, coming within a foot
upon them. They flee loudly upward,
however, at the approach of distracted joggers twenty feet away.
Another
time, deep looking, I see why one of the great wights of this land had left. The short, strong oaks he belonged to, which
once held water onto those dry slopes, had long been stripped away by settlers,
leaving the mountains vulnerable. The
irony is my city is named for the old, Roman-descended Spanish duke of white
oak. Very little of those native trees
survive here. With no shade cover for
the valley below, strong seasonal winds whip up gouts of sand and dust. In the trees' place grow thorny, nettled
plants: cholla, sprawling nests of cacti and tangled brush.
The Hills
have been waiting quietly for Oak to return, when the environment heals. Our presence here does not matter: it can
delay, but it won't prevent his coming back.
The
answer to what do you see?, is
rarely immediate, even as I catalogue the physical details — the character of
the sky, the movements of wings and wind, the scars to the land — my
observations and connections going deeper, layer by layer, as I continue to
look.
Usually,
just as I'm about to give up, I take one look back when I see something
startling.
This was
not one of those days.
I'm stiff
and my ankles ache from the climb.
I wonder
why I went up this short knob of a foothill now, instead of turning in the
other direction, away from the development. It wasn't a wise choice at this time of day,
around four in the afternoon. There are
too many people out, having just gotten off work or school, trying to enjoy the
last bit of winter sun. I sit on a
summit among some big, rounded rocks, wanting to write in my journal, but it's
too noisy here.
And the
snacks I brought to bolster my walk are deeply unsatisfying.
Odin sits
next to me, and I can barely stay conscious of his presence with all the sound
and city-spawned motion below. This is
not a very holy wilderness setting, is it?
He leans
close to my ear. "What do you see,
lass?"
I sigh.
Some jerk
left a crushed Gatorade bottle up here. There's
a faded, dirty oversized pint of beer wedged into a place I won't be able to
safely reach to remove it. At least they
didn't shatter a glass bottle. Some days
I take an entire backpack of bagged trash out of here, my offering to the land
spirits.
"Too
many people," I say, bitterly. The
city population is only growing, and the dwindling and polluted aquifer can't
support us. I am one of those "too
many" and I know it.
Odin says
nothing, patient.
Traffic
whooshes and blares half a mile away, too loud with rush hour, carried by the
wind several streets down over the neatly gridded houses, disrupting my
thoughts. Brakes squeal. Angry horns. What was I thinking, coming up here?
Movement
pulls my gaze closer.
A pair of
men in track suits jog the wide path that straddles the arroyo below me,
talking. They look like they're from the
Indian subcontinent, and while I can't understand a thing they're saying, the
cheerfulness of their back-and-forth exchange doesn't need a translation.
For a
moment, I smile.
A loud
knot of teenagers, coming down the path from the other side, ragging on each
other.
What do I see?
"Friendship."
One of
the teens shrieks laughter, the way kids do, mixed with howls of protest. I wince at the noise, compounded by an
airplane's low path, circling into the "sunport", and a siren blaring
off somewhere to the right. It's a
hazard of climbing too close to the neighbourhood below. I usually go up into the other foothills
instead, deeper into the open space, or sheltered from the close view of houses
by the bends in the hills.
Vapour
trails cut the sky. A haze — dust mixed
with smog — hangs over the horizon, smearing the western volcanoes and edge of
the city a dull, burnt orange. The air
smells dirty, too.
"I
see a land that's ill-used."
"Keep
looking."
Dog-walkers.
Wandering the trails and neighbourhood
sidewalks, as if there is no difference. I like dogs, and it's their nature, like all
animals, to leave poop. But I don't like
the owners who know better and don't clean up after them, despite the city
leaving signs about the health hazards, along with plenty of free bags and
waste baskets at the parking lots. Sometimes
they even bag the poop — and helpfully leave it right beside the trails. Ten feet from an empty garbage can.
Forget
the friendly dogs and the irresponsible humans. The city stretches out, in neat grids of
houses and broader, tree-rimmed roads. I
pick out the house of a friend. A larger
building with green around it that must be one of the local schools. The faster thread of movement — traffic along
a highway.
There's a
playground not too far from the arroyo, and it's late enough in the afternoon
that both parents and children have come to use it.
"Generations
of people living here, and it's too fragile to support all of us."
Gods, the
noise really is putting me in a
dark mood. So is my headache.
Odin
doesn't put a hand on my shoulder, but he might as well have. The tone of his voice is like a cloak laid
over my weary back by a friend. He lifts
his head, craning toward the horizon and I follow his serious gaze:
"Look
wide, and look far. Look upon your city.
This is your community. These are your people, all of them. The
people you know and the people you will never meet. Even the ones you don't like. Good or bad, rich or poor, status and class
and family don't matter. Politics don't
matter. They're still all your people.
"You
are a part of this, and your wyrd is all tied together, for as long as you live
here."
Wandering
the Albuquerque foothills, I have met my neighbours — the fellow writer
assembling a trail guide who I talked with at twilight, the wilderness steward
up the street, the other hikers and dog-walkers — as well as the people of rock
and rivulet, the animal people, the plant people. The majestic guardians of the hills
themselves, much older than all the rest of us, who knew I walked with a God,
long before I was aware of their gaze. Wights who I proved my worth to over
time, through bravery and kindness, who became my protectors and friends.
In all
the quiet contemplation and observation while hiking, I thought I was getting
out alone to deepen my relationship with nature and myself, strengthening both
my body and spirit along the way. But I
wasn't going out to be alone. I was just spending time in (mostly) non-human
company, out where I could see and hear surreptitiously prowling coyotes and
shyly bobbing lines of quail, follow the hawks circling over places I would
later reach adventurously by foot, and watch the ashy ravens glide from wild
place to walled back yards with aplomb, chatting as they flew. The foothills teem with as many residents as
the neighbourhoods below. You just won't
see them if you don't learn how to be a living part of the landscape, as they
are, instead of just moving across it, earphones and fitness goals firmly
plugged in.
And there
was rarely a day, in all that walking, when I did not hear or sense Odin
accompanying me, even if we did not speak much — usually, at a certain point
along the path, there'd be the tap of a staff back behind my left shoulder, and
I'd get a sense of a tall man tipping the brim of his hat down against the
bright New Mexico sun. And at the same
point, going back, he'd nod to me goodbye and remain along the trail as I
walked on.
My utgard, the "outside
place", always led back to the innangard:
my friends' home and my own community — some days wiser, and some days simply
tired from the walk and the drive back.
As a
wandering God who can change into animal forms, and a master of human
disguises, Odin's stories inevitably carry him along paths from lonely, wild
places to company. Whether he appears on
a promontory to a boatful of saga warriors, shows up at the hamlet of Otter's
father, or bores his way into Gunlodd's isolated mountain room and escapes home
to Asgard again by a hair's breadth, he's always in the thick of it.
In the
end, solitary Odin always comes back to a community.
We think
of community as something artificial and human-centred that we construct. But community is the relationship of all of the inhabitants of a place —
the humans and animals, microorganisms and plants, the Gods and the dead and
the very spirits of place — weaving together in a unique spiritual ecology. Whether we're aware of those other residents
or not, we're linked to them in the causal and energetic web of wyrd: all that is, has been and will
potentially become.
Wherever you live, you're a part of it.
All of you.
All of us.
