Winifred Hodge Rose
Someone asked an interesting question about two parts or aspects of our Ghost-Soul, gast-gehygd and gast-gemynd, that I write about in the section “Ghost and Mind” my article Ond, Ahma, Ghost and Breath: Basic Meanings.
“In the chapter you mention two time-related words, gastgehygd (awareness going forward in time) and gastegemynd (awareness backward in time). I find this really fascinating. My question is does this relate at all to the Aldr, since Aldr shapes our mind-body-heart-spirit in time?”
My thoughts:
This is a very thought-provoking question! Gehygd in Anglo-Saxon was used for “mind, thought, reflection, forethought,” while gemynd is translated as “memory, remembrance, thought, purpose, consciousness, mind, intellect.” Hyge-related words have been lost in modern English, whereas Mynd has been retained as our word ‘mind.’ Modern Heathens who have written on this topic consider that “gemynd / mynd” has primarily the sense of ‘reflective thought, pondering, musing,’ while gehygd / hyge has a connotation of active thought, intention, a reaching-out of the mind, instead of the going-inward of reflective gemynd.
These interpretations make sense to me, as a way to grasp the subtle differences between these two words and what they might mean for us today in the context of Heathen soul lore. I’d really like to read more of how these words, and their compounds gast-gemynd and gast-gehygd, were used in Anglo-Saxon texts, but haven’t had the time for an exhaustive search, so far.
Because these words, gast-gemynd and gast-gehygd, are a bit difficult, here I will use these modernized terms for them: Ghost-Mynd and Ghost-Hyge (“hee-yeh”), still keeping their Anglo-Saxon connections.
When I work with Ghost-Mynd and Ghost-Hyge, I start with the image of Odin’s ravens, whose names correspond to these words: Huginn / gehygd, Muninn / gemynd. The Ravens both fly out and seek information for Odin; they are both aspects of his greater Being, and thus correspond to our own soul-parts of Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd: these are soul-parts of our own Gast or Ghost soul. (I discuss this further in my article Ond, Ahma, Ghost and Breath.)
Odin says that he fears that Huginn will not return, but fears even more for Muninn (Grimnismal v. 20, in the Poetic Edda). This goes well, I think, with the above interpretation of Hyge being active, outreaching thought, while Mynd is inner, reflective and pondering thought and the memory it works with. Bringing back information is all very well, but without the ability to ‘digest’ that information and put it into context with all we hold in our memory, we may not be able to use it meaningfully or wisely. (Compare this to what is going on in Midgard today, with all the tweety information sharing, overload, and doom-scrolling, and not enough careful thought and pondering about what we are supposedly ‘learning’!)
I liken Muninn / Ghost-Mynd to what goes on in Mimir’s Well of Memory. I liken Huginn / Ghost-Hyge to what Odin does with his active seeking of knowledge. Our Ghost-Hyge flies forth, reaches forward in time, to what is new (at least to us personally), what lies over the horizon, what is coming into being. Hyge / Huginn is a hunter of knowledge. Our Ghost-Mynd lies in the deep well of our inner being, fermenting and digesting what Ghost-Hyge brings, and giving rise to deep wisdom. Mynd / Muninn is a weaver of wisdom.
Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd are parts of our own Ghost-soul: very active parts that shape a lot of what our Ghost is, what it is like and what it does. We can see Odin and his Ravens as models for our Ghost with its own ‘Ghost-ravens’: Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd.
Now back to the original question: is there a connection with the Aldr soul here, in the way that Ghost-Hyge reaches forward into ‘intentionality’, what we seek to do in the future, while Ghost-Mynd works with memory as the ‘vat’ within which it ferments its wisdom. What are these soul-parts’ real relationships with Time?
In seeking to answer this, I turn first to the Norns. Ghost-Hyge works most with Skuld and Verdandi: what ‘shall / should’ come, and what is coming into being now. Ghost-Mynd works most with Urdh, with What-Is, all the complex weavings of the past that create the substrate within which Becoming moves into Being, as each present moment, with all it carries, works its way into the pattern of ‘What-Is’, which we call ‘the past’.
When I describe the process like this, it sounds a lot like Aldr’s work of weaving our Werold, our personal world that comprises all that we do and experience in the context of our lifetime. I describe our Werold using the image of a cloak or tapestry woven over our lifetime (see discussion of the Werold and Aldr in my article Aldr and Orlay: Weaving a World.)
I’m getting a lovely image, in fact, of Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd being like two shuttles or needles, weaving in and out of the tapestry of our life. Or two ravens, weaving their ways like swift, sharp needles through the complex patterns of the Worlds, seeking knowledge and understanding. Ghost-Hyge brings in the new threads, Ghost-Mynd weaves them into the pattern. Wode, flowing through our Ahma and Ghost, inspires this activity. Our Ghost grows in power and wisdom, as the activity proceeds.
So, I do think there is a connection between Ghost-Hyge, Ghost-Mynd, and Aldr. This connection occurs through the weaving of our Werold, and the interactions between the Ghost-ravens and the Norns with their respective domains. There may well be other connections, too, but my Ghost-Mynd needs time to chew on this new source of understanding that Ghost-Hyge sought out!
A following question ensues: what is the connection between the ‘soul-raven’ called Ghost-Hyge, and our Hugr soul? Let’s look at this question using the analogy of ‘fractals’, of patterns which repeat themselves at progressively smaller and larger scales. I’m thinking specifically of hugr-functions as a set of fractal patterns, which I’ll break down here.
1) We have our Ghost-soul, which I’m suggesting is an analogy with Odin, at one fractal level. Among the powers of this soul is the ability to generate our personal equivalents of Huginn and Muninn, namely our Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd. Odin employs the Ravens for one of his primary activities, which correspond to his “Wanderer / Old Wise Man” aspect: seeking knowledge and processing that knowledge into understanding and then into wisdom.
The reason Odin can do this processing so well, is because of the pledge of his eye to Mimir’s Well, and his drink therefrom. I think that Huginn arose from or joined with Odin when Odin sacrificed himself on the Tree: an active, outreaching act. In particular, the spear that stabbed Odin is a symbol for the outreaching, directed power of Hugr.
I think Muninn came to him when he sacrificed his eye to the Well: an introspective, inward-seeing act. Mimir’s Well is a symbol of the deep, inner processing that turns knowledge and memory-experience into wisdom. In both cases Odin enacted a sacrifice.
He used the cosmic symbols of the Tree / spear (resulting in Huginn) and the Well (resulting in Muninn) as the ‘receivers’ of the sacrifice, and what he sacrificed each time transformed itself into the Ravens and returned to him in different form. Once this was done, he ‘began to grow wise.’
2) These events in Odin’s life, in my understanding, resulted in great impacts upon his Hugr: stimulating, expanding, strengthening and motivating this powerful soul within him. His Hugr drives him to pursue knowledge and power, to shape the events of the Worlds, and over the time-outside-of-time of Odin’s existence, his Hugr has grown mightily in skill and power. At this fractal level of being, Hugr takes shape as a full-soul of great power. Odin spends a lot of his time in full expression of this soul, with all of his purposeful action, mental and physical, that he undertakes in the different Worlds.
I believe that Odin inclines somewhat more toward Huginn than toward Muninn. Muninn’s power in Odin’s life, when fractally upscaled like his Hugr is from Huginn, takes shape outside of Odin, in the shape of Mimir’s Well and Mimir’s head. A number of times in the lore, it’s said that Odin consults Mimir’s head when in need of profound wisdom–one gets the impression that he sometimes carries it around with him! Though the lore doesn’t much mention Odin going to Mimir’s Well specifically, other than when he drank of it and sacrificed his eye, I perceive that Odin does go to the Well, too.
I would say that Odin ‘stores’ his up-fractalled Muninn-functions in the Well and in Mimir’s head–the head is kind of like a portable Well, or an I-pad as opposed to the mainframe of the Well! Odin seems to find it handy, but he also worries more about losing Muninn (here up-fractalled to Mimir’s head) than about losing Huginn. This makes sense at the level I’m discussing here: if his upscaled Muninn-function is not actually his own soul, as Hugr is, but is an outside function like Mimir’s head, then he is indeed more at risk of losing it than of losing his Hugr soul.
3) I envision Mimir’s Well / head as “World-Mind”, as the metaphysical space where all thought occurs, and where consequently all thinking beings have access. It’s the mental-world analogy to Midgard, where physical action takes place. (I discuss this idea further in my article The Alchemy of Hel, Part 1.)
I don’t see an equivalent of Hugr / Huginn that would correspond to this universal World-Mind space. Hugr is intensely personal, focused on personal desires, intentions, motivations, actions. Hugr is driven by these characteristics to seek knowledge and power, however we each may shape the meanings of these words, whether in selfish or in generous ways and applications.
So, in a nutshell, I’m suggesting that Hugr and Huginn are fractals of each other. Huginn bridges the space between Odin’s Ghost and Hugr souls, as our Ghost-Hyge does for us, carrying thoughts and energies back and forth. Huginn / Ghost-Hyge, along with Muninn / Ghost-Mynd, also bridges other spaces involving our other souls and all the vast domain of what is outside ourself. In this sense, here is another link between Huginn and Hugr, because Hugr is a seeker of knowledge in hidden places, and a warder of the boundaries between our inner self and the outside world (see my article Who is Hugr?). These are ‘bridging’ functions, just as the Ravens are. Hugr and Huginn both fly wide, back and forth, inward and outward, in pursuit of knowledge and their / our desires.
It may sound like I’m suggesting that Hugr arises from Huginn / Ghost-Hyge, or vice versa, but I’m not. I do think Hugr is a full-soul, who has its origin in the wispy coming-into-being energies of Hel, the Womb of Souls (I discuss this in The Alchemy of Hel, Part 6, and in Hunting the Wild Hugr). I think that Huginn / Ghost-Hyge is generated by the powers of Ghost and wode, and is a part of Ghost, not a stand-alone soul as Hugr is. But they have functions, purposes and similarities that overlap, in that Ghost-Hyge serves our Ghost in a similar way that Hugr serves our whole personal soular-system and Being.
How about Ghost-Mynd? Muninn is a bridge, too, along with Huginn, shuttling between Worlds and within our own inner Werold. Ghost-Mynd bridges between our personal mind and World-Mind, symbolized (for me, anyway) by Mimir’s Well / head. Ghost-Hyge and Hugr take action primarily in Midgard. They may seek hidden knowledge wherever it lies, but their purposes tend to be Midgard-focused. Ghost-Mynd and Muninn operate in World-Mind, in the mental world. Ghost-Mynd is the bridge between our own personal Ghost, and the greater abstract spaces of World-Mind; it flies over those vast spaces of Being and brings back hints and clues of what it finds, for our Ghost to explore further.
So here’s a question to pursue for yourself. Let’s look at the vast tidal pools of the Internet world as one of the domains where our Ghost-Hyge and Ghost-Mynd fly out daily, in their task of gathering knowledge for our Ghost and other souls, and helping to process that knowledge into understanding, and then into wisdom. How well-balanced are your own soul-ravens as they pursue this task?
Ghost-Hyge / Huginn has the task of gathering information and knowledge. Ghost-Mynd / Muninn has the task of gradually transmuting that knowledge into wisdom. Bridging the space between them is the weaving of ‘understanding’. The process goes like this: knowledge is shaped into understanding, and then into wisdom, through the application of thought, feeling, experience, memory, and the work of all our souls.
Is this wisdom-weaving process working well for you? Are your Ghost-ravens both functioning in a well-balanced way, completing the process of transmuting knowledge and understanding into wisdom? Or is the process sometimes short-circuited, stopping at the ‘information-gathering’ stage, and not proceeding far enough toward the ‘wisdom-weaving’ stage?
Give it some thought…..the Ravens are calling!
*****
Here’s a related article of mine that might be of interest: https://heathensoullore.net/mimir-odin-and-world-mind/
You might also enjoy the words to this song that I wrote many years ago, set to the tune of the medieval English song “Three Ravens.”
The Winds of Odin’s Will
This song tries to capture a spae-seeing I had of Woden’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn (“Thinking” and “Remembering”), and of how they are linked to Woden’s will. I saw “reality” as though it were a huge blanket spread out over the landscape, with the ravens flying across. Then I saw Woden take up one edge of the “blanket” and shake it as though he were Frau Holle airing her celestial bedding! When Woden shook the blanket, a series of ripples spread across the landscape of the blanket–big ripples in the part closest to him, and eventually growing smaller & smaller as the blanket passed out of sight over the horizon. From this sight, my understanding is that though Woden cannot–or perhaps chooses not to–change the entire fabric of reality according to his will, he nevertheless is prone to giving it a good shaking up and airing out! The “parts” of reality “closest” to him (the terms in quotation marks are not very accurate for describing this, but I can’t think of better ones) are of course the most affected, those farther away from his point of concentration, less so. Then, I saw Woden’s will itself as though it were a wind emanating from his being and keeping the ripples of the blanket in motion, flowing across the landscape of reality in the direction of his will, like ripples blowing across a lake in the wind. Huginn and Muninn ride the tides of this wind, which always takes them in the direction of Woden’s interest and involvement in reality and the ways he is working upon it. (Though again, “direction” is not the right term to use…it is difficult speaking of these things, even in metaphor!) The rest of the scenes in my song, I also perceived in my seeing, but they are self-explanatory.
- Let fly two Ravens forth from thee,
Singing Thought and Memory!
Naught in any world from them can flee.
Fare ye forth!
Hear one of them call to his mate,
Seeking out the strands of fate,
Crying, “Come! Fare we now on winds of Odin’s will!”
2. Upon yon distant stone-girt peak
Singing Thought and Memory!
There stands an ancient mossy seat.
Fare ye forth!
There, rooted in eldest might,
Thou sendest forth thy winged sight.
Crying, “Come! Fare we now on winds of Odin’s will!”
3. Through worlds of darkness, worlds of light,
Singing Thought and Memory!
Two night-hued Ravens, swift in flight:
Fare ye forth!
Gather ye news of each wight,
See what goes ill, see deeds of right,
Crying, “Come! Fare we now on winds of Odin’s will!”
4. Now sinks the Sun in misty vale,
Singing Thought and Memory!
Thou biddest them hence to tell their tale:
Fare ye hence!
From Hlidskjalf thy call echoes forth,
Spanning the Worlds from south to north,
Crying, “Come! Fare ye now on winds of Odin’s will!”
5. As Night’s soft arms embrace bright Day,
Singing Thought and Memory!
Two shining Ravens wend their way,
Faring hence!
Winds bear them to mountain crown,
Upon thy great shoulders gliding down,
Crying, “Hark! Wisdom borne on wings of Odin’s will!”
Heed we well the wisdom borne on wings of Odin’s will!
–Winifred Hodge Rose