Working For A Better Life (valkyrieofodin) wrote in northern_trad, @ 2008-05-21 09:10:00 |
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Current mood: | contemplative |
Entry tags: | jarnsaxa, mother's day, spiritual beings |
Thinking On Spiritual Forces
The previous article I posted spawned this train of thought... I hope it makes sense to others as much as to me. I probably could have gone on about the varied Jotunar and what each one means to me. The reason I picked Jarnsaxa right now is that Mother's Day is fast approaching and I am a non-custodial mother, my kids celebrate Mother's Day with someone else, give her presents and treat her 10 times better than me. I get a card and 'something' each year if I am remembered. I see my kids at her leisure. And I have to deal with it. But so goes life. That's the background, just so you understand where I was coming from. I could have picked anyone. But she's on my mind at this time. So yeah. please realize I transcribed this from elsewhere and it was written a while back. I apologize for that but I'm not going to change the wording...
A lot of people believe out of hand that either the Jotunar are or are not deities. I understand this take on it. And to an extent I sympathize. But, realize that I have a somewhat different take on this. I believe that there are those Jotunar who are deities. There are also those who are named, those who represent particular forces within this world. Who are inimitable to the way the world functions. These Jotunar are deities.Skadi,Gerda,Loki,Angrboda,Surt,F
For example, Modi and Magni would not have come into being were it not for Jarnsaxa, she must have a great amount of might within her, and virtue as well for Thor to have chosen her to bring his sons who will be part of making the world over again into being. She would not simply be a concubine to be cast to the side, even if lore does not give us a great deal of detail as to her character we can figure out that this is a woman of some virtue and with the ability to sacrifice for the greater good. Have you ever had to give up those whom you loved? Have you gone through a divorce and lost custody of your children? Had your children raised by someone else? Especially as though she was their mother and not you? If Jarnsaxa was such a frightening Jotun she could simply go and storm Asgard as did Skadi demanding wergild for such actions, but she does not.(And frankly there is a great lesson to be learned from Skadi doing so as well; it's called standing up for your rights.) This shows that she knows her part has been to contribute for the greater good of this world; and that there is most likely far more going on here than we have left in lore. That the lore was most likely lost thanks to time, and the fact that oral traditions lose information as well as that we know most of the written lore surrounding female cults was really snuffed out.
So, we must think through some of this, is it logical to try and demonize a kind of being simply as a reactionary type of behavior? Many of those who come to Heathenry as well as other pagan movements today are coming from Judeo-Christian backgrounds and it is normal to them to think in the terms of good and evil that was laid out when they were very young. But, those who we are trying to build our faith after did not necessarily think in quite the same frame of mind as we do now. They thought in terms of forces. AEsic forces, Vanic forces, possibly even Jotunic forces. These each had a different effect upon the world, just as there were individuals within each tribe who stood out, such as Jarnsaxa (who I have just discussed) there were always those who contributed to the group on a more basic level, supporting the structure and driving it forward so that it could be what it was meant to; giving it a kind of primal push as it were. Those Jotunar who are not named in lore, are the ones who lend themselves as primal forces, they are just that, they are not deities. That does not make them unworthy of honor. They contribute to the essence of how the world works as well; but on a more subtle level. Just as there are AEsic forces and Vanic forces who are not named, that make the world have different ways of becoming, ways of working we need in order to interpret our environment. There are Nornir who are not named, who do what they do, in the individual lives of each of us. This is spoken of in the Eddas. And all of this makes our world richer.
Consciousness of this is something we should work toward but not obsess about. If someone wants to find a way to weave it that's fine but it isn't ever going to be the same for each individual. Each individual is going to have to figure out what this means for them. Find where they are most comfortable. You aren't going to be best friends with Betty down the street and with Wilma in Alabama too. Sometimes you are going to be talking to one far more than the other. And though this may seem exclusionary, it may not be done with a desire to be insulting it's human nature. When it becomes non-functional, is when you play favorites for the sake of deliberately excluding a particular individual or set of individuals who you could benefit from in my opinion. It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face. If I am being offered a drink of water, and I am almost at the point of death due to dehydration, but I refuse the drink because I don't like the person, or the family from which the person stems, then it's my fault and only my fault if I die from dehydration. I see this happening a lot in the Greater Heathen Movement. There are folks within it, who only concentrate on the AEsir or Vanes, or the AEsir and the Vanes but will out and out reject any of the Jotunar as being of worth. If you are rejecting any of the others within the pantheon, if you are only concentrating on the Ases or on the Ases and the Vanes you are getting a kind of rudimentary course in getting along with the general public in my opinion. You are learning that 'this is what it takes to get along, people will always welcome me to their Kindred or their Sumble and I don't have to worry too awful much.' Other than not being too glib of tongue there aren't a lot of faux pas to worry about. But, Gods forbid you bring along the last level of deity to a sumble or a blot with people you don't know, you risk a lot. You aren't learning how to take any kind of personal risks if you play your cards close all the time. And frankly, our folk of days gone by didn't get to play it safe, their world was not safe. It was filled every moment with the possibility that some catastrophe could occur and they would have to deal with it. The AEsir and Vanir ordered their world gave some kind of meaning to the constant chaos as it were, but the Jotunar, both as deities and as forces gave them the ability to adapt to sudden change, and I don't see why anyone would shun this. I see them welcoming those who would give them honest lessons, as long as it was beneficial.
That is not to say that they didn't want to have some way of controlling it. Thus the story of chaining Fenris as opposed to letting him run free. But first in the story he was given every consideration, fed, exercised and treated as a part of the family (at least by Tyr) so they obviously knew the value of controlled chaos; even if today we do not. So much goes on within the legends of the past that we do not look for, there are so many subtleties. And as Heathens today we have so little grounding in the culture of the past (we are guessing a lot of the time still) that we are grasping at straws. We are painting our own values and culture onto the deities of times past. We need to suspend our judgments and try to listen with our insights and our hearts. If we did this more, and if we allowed UPG to give us some sane vision, we might have the opportunity to learn better. Though I am not saying to turn from honest scholarship, I am saying that allowing the forces of all the varied beings to have an influence rather than simply one or two kinds could make a vast difference. Why else are so many different kinds defined within Heathenry to begin with? Would we not simply have one or two kinds and be done with it? We honor not only the Gods but the Disir and Alfar(ancestors) the Wights/Vaettir, we honor the Alvs, why not the Jotunar? This is my way of doing what I do. To me Honoring the Deities and other Entities in this world is a very personal act. Worship is something that is more organized and group oriented. I do not devalue worship, as part of the Greater Heathen Experience we need this to bind ourselves as a community, but those things take a lot of negotiation as to who is comfortable with what in many ways. I think that as a community we need to see that in order to work together we need to look to the needs of the many, not just the fears of the few.
Written by, Ayla Wolffe©2008