Tag Archives: odin

Paganism, Personal Development, Religion, Spiritual Development

#changingpathschallenge2024: Change

Leave a comment

I have a complicated relationship with Odin. When I started looking to build a relationship with various Norse gods, I had planned on avoiding Odin altogether. I thought Thor seemed like a much friendlier and jovial sort. And Thor was indeed friendly to me. But one night, he told me he couldn’t stay to talk with me because someone else wanted a word.

And after a beautiful moment of being transformed into a falcon1 by Freyja and an exhilarating flight over a gorgeous canyon, I found myself in the throne room of the Al.father himself, who accused me of avoiding him.. I had been caught red handed and called out. Odin and I had a brief conversation in which he explained to me why i needed the gifts and lessons he wanted to teach me. I saw the wisdom in his arguments and agreed — albeit somewhat reluctantly — to work with him.

Odin has never been a huge part of my life. But he comes around every now and then. And the thing is, life gets interesting whenever he does. Because in my experience Odin usually brings change with him. There got to be a point in my life where I would sense his presence anew in my life and would immediate want to scream, “What now, fucker?!”2

Change is never easy, nor is it comfortable. I recall reading somewhere that all change is stressful and even traumatic, even positive change. And while the changes that Odin brought and asked me to undergo were always a net benefit for me, I didn’t always like going through the process of change.

That’s normal, and sometimes the only way to endure it is to remember that change is vital to life. One of the defining characteristics of living things is that they grow, and growth always means change. I’ve also heard it suggested that if you are not growing, you’re dying (which is typically a much less pleasant form of change in its own right) or already dead.

As someone who wants to go on living — and hopefully living well — I’ve come to accept change. Even with all its discomfort and messiness. So after I’ve sighed and groused about Odin coming around with more change, I usually let out a breath and say, “Okay, bring it on, fucker. Let’s do this.”

(This post is a part of the #changingpathschallenge2024. See Yvonne Aburrow’s post for more information on the challenge and a list of keywords/prompts for it.)

Footnotes

  1. If it’s not obvious, I’m talking about things that I envisioned/experienced while in an altered state of conscience. I’m not claiming that I literally shape-shifted. ↩︎
  2. Yes, I occasionally swear at my deities. We have that kind of relationship. ↩︎
Religion

Musings on Mimir’s Well and Ocular Sacrifices

Leave a comment

WellOne of my favorite myths is the myth of Odin’s sacrifice of his eye in order to earn the right to drink from Mimir’s well.  It’s one of the myths that explains how Odin gained his wisdom.

One of the most common interpretations I have heard of this myth — promoted by people like Edred Thorsson — is that Odin gave up his eye and dropped it into the well so that it could forever scan the well’s depths, giving Odin knowledge of the secret wisdom contained in the well itself.  It’s an interesting interpretation, but I’ve never really cared for it.  I came to my own understanding of this myth.

I’d say that my own understanding was greatly influenced by the fact that I lived almost the entirety of the first three decades of my life with strabismus, which caused me to learn a good bit about stereoscopic vision, depth perception, and how important two eyes that work in cooperation are to one’s vision.  When I finally had surgery (actually, the second one, this time as an adult) to correct my strabismus, I learned how messing with your eyes can severely alter the perception of the world around you.  (Imagine reaching for a glass only to realize that it’s several inches further away from you than you thought, for example.)

To me, Odin’s sacrifice seems to be more about a change of the way he looked at the world, giving up old perceptions rather than clinging to them.  To me, this is a powerful mythic message for the rest of us.  To gain wisdom and knowledge, we first have to admit that maybe the things we think we know, the way we look at things, our very assumptions, may need to be sacrificed.  Refusing to let go of these things keeps us trapped and bars us from the new wisdom that is being presented to us.

Interestingly, while doing a quick search in preparation for this post, I ran across a post by Wytch in the North.  In it, she describes a couple interpretations of the myths that come close to my own.  Those interpretations differ in that they seem to see the sacrifice as a shift (or a partial one) from linear/logical thinking to esoteric/creative thinking.  I’m not convinced of that, as I think that a true change of perception that can be caused by the loss of an eye affects both of those categories of thinking.  (I’m also hesitant to draw a huge distinction between those to modes of thinking, anyway.)  All the same, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who’s taken a different view of this myth than giants like Edred Thorsson.