Winifred Hodge Rose
Never be the first to tear apart friendship:
Grief grips the heart / Hugr when you have no one
With whom to speak all your thoughts.
(Havamal vs. 121, Poetic Edda, my translation.)
The Nature of Compassion-Energy
Compassion and sympathy literally mean ‘feeling with, sharing feelings’: con + passio in Latin, syn + patheia in Greek both mean ‘with + feeling.’ It does not always have to be feelings of pain and suffering that are shared, but any feelings. The sharing of any kind of feelings creates an energetic bond, short-term or long-term depending on circumstances. These energetic bonds add up, over time, to create and sustain all kinds of relationships, frith, and community connections.
(As a reminder, severely negative feelings, such as enjoyment of others’ suffering, bullying, exploitation of others, violence, cruelty, etc., can also create sick bonds between people who enjoy causing those negative feelings in their victims. This is clearly not the kind of community and fellow-feeling that we are seeking here, and we need to reject any effort to draw us into such negative bonds with others (physical or spiritual). This can happen more easily than we may be aware of: enjoyment of cruel or exploitative scenes in movies and games, for example, can set us on such a path before we realize it.)
It is true that compassion can strain and exhaust us at times. The aperture in our heart through which compassion flows may start out rather narrow, and become frayed and bruised when the flow of compassion through it becomes too great for our capacity. Even when we enlarge our capacity and stamina for compassion, we can still reach our limit in tough situations. A good example of this is the plight of health care workers during the Covid pandemic, whose compassion and strenuous work led them to the point of collapse.
I want to make a subtle point about this situation here. There is a difference, at the energetic level, between running out of physical and mental energy and stamina, versus running out of compassion-energy itself. They are different kinds of energy, and the difference can be important on a spiritual level, even when they are overlapping on the physical level. Compassion-energy is a stream flowing through us, not a finite resource that we own. It circulates around among the worlds and beings of the worlds, picking up enhancements from each of us and from all beings as it flows on its way. When we share feelings, share the energy of compassion, what is really happening is compassion-energy interacting with itself. The compassion-energy flowing through each of us reaches out to the same energy flowing through others around us; it contacts those energies and blends together as we ‘share feelings’ or ‘share together in compassion-energy.’
Managing Compassion-Energy
We may reach the point where we cannot physically, mentally or emotionally sustain the practical demands of compassion, as in the example of pandemic-era health care workers. The demands may be so great that we are injured by them, as health care workers may suffer from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and health breakdowns. Though it may feel natural, at such a time, to shut down our feelings of compassion in self-defense, this is actually the wrong time to do that.
The reason is, again, that compassion is a flow, and we ourselves desperately need compassion at this very time when we are tempted to shut it down. When we shut down the outflow, the inflow may well be shut down or minimized as well. We can see this happening, using our example again, when health care workers feel a sense of guilt and failure when they try to step back or give up their responsibilities because they cannot manage any more. They may block the inflow of compassion that others are sending toward them, including from spiritual sources, feeling that they ‘don’t deserve it’ since they are not giving compassion out anymore. They may imagine they are ‘failures’, bad people who have let others down, and ‘deserve to suffer.’
This is a terribly painful state to be in and may eventually lead to what I mentioned earlier: the shutting-down of all compassion, including compassion toward ourselves and our own needs. Then we end up with damage to our souls, becoming cynical, hardened, depressed, detached, neglectful of our own wellbeing and uncaring about everyone else. Next may come addictions and other dysfunctional coping behaviors, and it’s a downward slope from there.
All of these awful experiences come about, I believe, through the root cause of trying to block the proper flow of compassion. This effort at self-protection is totally understandable, but is based on a lack of understanding of the true mystery of compassion. And this mystery is simple but profound: compassion must keep flowing. It must not be blocked, even though the expression of compassion through physical and emotional activity may have to take a break from time to time, due to exhaustion and the need for self-care.
The Goddesses Syn (the doorkeeper) and Hlin (the provider of safe refuge) can help us manage such needs and processes of healthy withdrawal and rest. But regardless of our state of rest or of activity, the flow of compassion must continue.
Keeping Compassion Flowing
You may ask “how is this compassion supposed to continue, when I am too tired and burned out to do anything? I don’t want to talk or listen to anyone, or do anything for anyone that I don’t absolutely have to. I’ve got to shut it down.” No, you mustn’t shut it down: now you need it flowing into you, just as much as you were letting it flow out of you when you were actively expressing it. The mistake here is thinking that compassion always has to be active, which can indeed be exhausting.
Let’s look at an example in our imaginations, now, as an example of the power of passive, rather than active compassion: the compassion of Being rather than of Doing. Maybe you’ve known someone like this; if not, imagine it. Here is an elderly and frail person, able to do very little at this stage of life. This person is a grandparent, and during their younger years, was actively involved with the lives of their children and grandchildren, their other relatives, neighbors and friends. People felt that this grandparent could really see them, know them and care about them; just being near them, saying hello on their way to school or work, was a little lift in their day. I was lucky to have grandparents like that; for example, during WWII they wrote regular letters to all the young men and women they knew about from their small town who were serving in the war, especially to those whose own families were not so faithful.
Now this person is very old and can’t do much at all. They sit in a chair and spend most of their days in quietude. They may not be as mentally sharp as they used to be. But are they cut off from the compassion they practiced throughout their life, because they can no longer be active? No way. They have spent their life being a channel for compassion, and compassion is now flowing steadily through them with power and beauty. It waters their souls, and spreads out from them like scent from lovely flowers, filling the air around them. Its ripples spread outward like sound-waves through the ether. Their heart is still working just fine as a channel for compassion-energy, even if their mental and physical powers are fading.
You may think I am being sentimentally poetic, but I have known people like this, and not only old people. I’ve known people whom others just want to be around, because they are quiet but spiritually strong and peaceful people who spread happiness just by their presence. Such people are rare, but they don’t need to be. This is something we can all aspire to, no matter our state of strength or health, work or wealth, culture or religion, opportunity or lack of it. Such quiet saints have spread peace in concentration camps and on desperate migrations: such is their power. This kind of power is passive; it is not expressed through direct action. Rather, this energy disperses out from the compassionate person, and is absorbed through osmosis by others around them.
Hindus have a practice called darshan, where pilgrims simply sit quietly in the presence of persons recognized as holy people, perhaps speaking with them, perhaps not. This is considered a valuable spiritual practice, offering peace, hope, blessing to those attending, even though nothing much happens. They are sharing in a deep flow of compassion.
Animals are often very attracted to people who are adept at this flow of peaceful compassion, and many people have felt a response from natural entities like trees when engaging in this activity in natural surroundings. Spiritual beings like landwights and housewights appreciate being in this kind of environment. They hate it, and tend to desert the area, when people in their environment are quarrelsome, disruptive and disrespectful, as is told in many tales of folklore.
These examples all show gentle but powerful expressions of compassion, and they are flows whose expression can be accepted by each recipient in the way best suited to them. There are often times when acts of intended compassion are actually not that well-suited to their recipients, and sometimes ulterior motives can be masked by apparent acts of compassion. All of these leave a bad taste behind them, and unfortunately they commonly occur. The flows from the heart that I am talking about here can never go wrong, because this quiet compassion shapes itself to each person’s need as it flows through them.
The Mystery of Compassion
The mystery of compassionate flow can take on many shapes and expressions, suited not only to the recipients, but to the giver’s abilities as well, which will vary over time depending on their circumstances. When we cannot perform physical acts of compassion, we can still keep the beautiful, soul-nourishing flow moving vigorously through ourselves and the world around us, through a passive form of dispersion and osmosis.
Compassion is a flow of energy. This energy can express itself in active or passive ways, and both are of great value. The energy of compassion needs to flow through us constantly. It flows into us from other people, Deities, spiritual beings and beings of nature. Within us, it nourishes, energizes and heals us, and it takes on something of our own ‘shape and flavor.’ Then it flows out from us to be shared with other beings, through physical, emotional, mental, spiritual activities, and through passive but powerful processes like dispersion and osmosis.
Compassion in Heathenry
Having discussed here the general nature of compassion, let’s move on now to ideas about how our own Heathen Deities may relate to us compassionately. With such inflows of compassion from them, we can fill our own ‘compassion-tanks’ and have more to share with others here in Midgard!
Modern Heathens often wonder about where or how one can find compassion in our troth. The texts and tales passed down to us from earlier Heathen times do not offer a great many examples of compassion, although related impulses such as frith and generosity are praised. These texts were written during times of great difficulty and cultural change, and their focus was on the warrior life and warrior values—this was how the poets and tale-tellers made their living. Anything relating to everyday life, parenting, elder care, care for the sick and dying, neighborliness, and other opportunities to practice compassion was given short shrift in the poems and tales, though there are brief, passing examples in the sagas and some poems. (You can read about “Thor’s Act of Compassion” in this article: https://heathensoullore.net/thoughts-on-thor-and-his-children/.)
We, as modern Heathens, do not need to remain stuck in these patterns of the past. Modern Heathen ethics and community values are topics of lively discussion and exploration among us, and the need for compassion is acknowledged within our faith as well as all others.
It’s important to note something that frequently serves to block and confuse all of us, as we seek compassion in times of need, either from other people or from the Deities. Compassion can take many forms, sometimes unexpected and even unwelcome forms, such as ‘tough love’ (which may be truly compassionate, or may not, depending on how it is applied). Different states of need, and different people, personalities, and circumstances, may require different forms of compassion in order to best address the need.
How the Deities Shape Compassion
Compassion is a form of energy, as our souls are, too. As compassion flows through a living being, physical or non-physical, it is shaped by the ‘container’ of that being, then shaped again as it reaches its destination within us or other beings and begins to nourish us with its healing energy. Here I will offer some examples of how our Deities may shape their compassion toward us. Of course, these examples are based on my own knowledge and experience of these Deities; your experience might turn out somewhat differently, based on your own relationships with them.
The point remains: we can seek our Deities when in need of their compassion, with the understanding that they will give it their own way, in their own time and choice of circumstances. We need to be open to that, not demanding a specific form of compassion, and rejecting anything different that they might offer. We also need to be open to the idea that compassion may come from a different Deity than we were expecting. All of them, even the ‘toughest’, have their own ways of doing this, as some modern Heathens have experienced from Deities like Hella, for example.
With these thoughts in mind, let’s turn to some examples of how we can find compassion from our Deities. Having many Deities in our troth, each with their own personalities, offers a smorgasbord of different ways that we may meet with compassion from them, which can truly serve us well!
Here are vignettes, short scenes or stories, showing examples of how some of our Deities may express their compassion toward us. Each Deity’s way is different and may be of use to you at different times in your life. These scenes may inspire you to pursue your own experiences of compassion from all of our Holy Ones. I encourage you to then pass that compassion on and share it with others!
Thor’s Compassion
Thor grips your shoulders, shakes you lightly, looks into your eyes with his powerful gaze. “Hey, you can do / get through this! You know I’ve got your back, always—and my great kids do, too. Our strength is yours: draw on it, drink it in; there’s always enough. The Mod-mead, yeah? The maegen-ale. Asmodi. We brew it ourselves, here in Thrudheim; there’s nothing else like it. It will do you nothing but good. Have a horn-full! Have two!” You feel warmth and power in your belly, strength at your back; you stand strong against adversity.
Freya’s Compassion
Freya’s heart is the fire of life: sweet-scented, jewel-toned, shimmering-silk flames, twining in graceful, hypnotic patterns. You walk into the lovely chamber of her heart, sink into this fire of life. It rises around you; burns away the dross, the despair, the hurts and harms that are draining your life-force and your joy. You feel burnished, shining, as your life-force begins to replenish through the warm fires of her sacred Brisingamen jewels. You stay as long as you wish, return as often as you want. This life-giving fire is such joy!
Gradually, you learn to bring this life-force, warmth and joy back with you to energize your daily life and share with others. Your own heart, your own souls, are afire with Freya’s beautiful compassion, the food of life. She feeds it into Midgard through you. Use it exuberantly!
Tyr’s Compassion
Tall and stern, Tyr gazes at you, measuring your fiber. There is no softness there, but steel and piercing starlight. You breathe in the cold, clear air, the air from the stars. It is sharp in your lungs, and your mind begins to clear from the fogs and confusions of your Midgard life. You see more clearly, discern more clearly, your sense of truth and your ability to judge and evaluate are sharpened. Your confusions begin to resolve into clarity.
Tyr drapes a magnificent mantle around your shoulders, and you feel its weight. He challenges you to sense what this mantle is woven of: Loyalty. Commitment. Faithfulness. Honor. Responsibility toward those who depend on you. Our life is not only our own; we are part of a whole, and we have commitments to that whole.
Tyr guides you in the process of turning pain and injury, the things for which you seek compassion, into a sacrificial gift for the wellbeing of the greater whole. The way to do this is unique to you, your own path, and Tyr’s rede is deep but clear: a star reflecting in the pool of everyday life.
Tyr’s remote gaze meets yours. Do you accept his gifts, and his challenge? As you do so, you feel an ease, a clarity, a singleness of purpose. You know where you are going now. Tyr’s stern benevolence equips you to deal with your life’s challenges. You stand tall in salute to Tyr’s bright might, then wend your way back to Midgard.
Frigg’s Compassion
Frigg bends toward you, takes your hand, strokes your cheek and your hair in motherly fashion. “Weep,” she says. “Weep all your tears; let them flow. Release them. You have reason for your sadness, and you must let it run its course.” She sits quietly with you while you do this; the warmth of her heart cradles you, there beside her hearth-fire.
As your tears begin to subside, Frigg rises and fetches a roll of fluff and a spindle. She sits down with you again, saying “Take this fleece and roll a bit of it between your fingers into a thread. Attach that thread to the spindle, then let it drop and spin, as you twist more fleece into thread and twirl it onto the spindle.” You do so, and your motions become hypnotic. The growing length of thread begins to change color: perhaps one color, perhaps layers of many colors.
“This is a new thread to weave into the pattern of your life, dear one,” Frigg whispers softly to you. “You are spinning it out of the fibers of pain and sadness in your heart, but also the fibers of new hope. The weight of the spindle mimics the heavy weight you feel in your heart, but it also keeps the thread straight and true. The turning motion of the spindle can turn your life in a different direction. Think about this; watch it spin, sink into its motion. You have allowed the thread to change color. Look at its colors now: what do they tell you?”
Quietly, she draws out your deepest thoughts and feelings, and shares her rede with you as you continue spinning. Slowly, your pain begins to ease, as new directions take shape before you.
Odin’s Compassion
“If you’re going to wallow, do it somewhere else. Otherwise, sit down and listen.” Odin heaves a sigh as he drops down beside you near the top of the mountain crag you have struggled to climb. He raises both hands and spreads them to either side; between his hands, a complex scene takes shape in the air before you.
“Surprised? You didn’t know you were climbing up toward Hlidskjalf, did you? Up there above us is the High Seat where Frigg and I look out over the Worlds, and where Huginn and Muninn bring me the news they have gathered.” Odin pauses, thoughtfully gnawing the end of his mustache, as you try to make sense of the jumbled, shifting scene before you in the air. You can’t figure it out, but it makes you feel bad in some way: sad, angry, guilty, regretful, despairing….
Odin begins to point out the features of the scene before you. You gradually realize that the image reflects the burden that lies on your heart, the matters that create your need for compassion. “See how that piece comes in and attaches over there, and how the whole thing flipped around and tangled where the wind is blowing it. And over there, pieces have broken off, while you’ve tried to attach other pieces over here. And where do you think this is all heading?” Odin asks.
This scene represents both time and space, process, actions and results. It shows the development and complexity of the matters that are troubling you. Future paths that it might take are faintly outlined.
“I’ve learned from Frigg and Freya and the other Seeresses,” Odin tells you, “but this place with its powers, and this skill—this is what I do myself. I see and pursue the strands of wyrd, and seek always to shape them to my will. Sometimes that works out, sometimes not so much,” he tells you wryly. “What can you learn from this? What can you see, with the power of my High Seat flowing down here to us for a few minutes? What are you going to do about this tangle? What is your own Will here?”
You sit speechless on the crag, feeling the winds blowing, seeing the double-vision of Odin’s scene imposed over the landscape, feeling the strange, powerful, uncomfortable energies emanating from the Great One next to you and flowing down the crag. This is difficult, and he’s not giving you any more help. Wind… and Will… Hugr-wind…. Huginn… Muninn….
You feel dizzy with the sudden rush of wind around you, then a soft explosion inside yourself rocks you with the feeling of….feathers? Your own Huginn and Muninn? Your own will-wind? You may be sitting on this crag for quite some time, working though all of this in your mind. At some point you notice that Odin is long gone, off on his own mysterious ways.
Sigyn’s Compassion
Sigyn is the wife of Loki, and suffers a cruel fate. Her husband is punished for his misdeeds by being bound to a rock, using the intestines of their slaughtered son as ropes. A snake hangs over him, dripping burning venom, which scalds Loki as it drips. Sigyn sits beside him holding a bowl to catch this venom. When she turns aside to empty it, venom drops from the snake onto Loki, causing him to writhe in agony and shake the earth.
Modern Heathens who have worked with Sigyn have found a deep compassion in her, a profound understanding of pain and grief. She offers a model of dogged, enduring compassion under the worst of circumstances.
Frau Holle’s Compassion.
Frau Holle, a German Goddess, shows her compassion in many, many ways of daily life. Sometimes it is gentle and kind, often it is brisk and practical, other times a stern, even threatening approach, when she sees we need a hard shove to get back on the right path for our well-being.
Here is a short vision I had of her, a few days after the death of my father. He had brought his originally admirable life to an end in late middle age, through decline and illness due to lack of self-care, and pushing away the loved ones who would have helped and supported him if he had allowed it. All the family and friends were grieving.
I sought out Frau Holle for comfort in my grief, and here is what I saw in my vision. She had my father standing in an old tin bathtub full of steaming hot water. Frau Holle, in her guise as a stern old woman of the no-nonsense nanny type, held a rough, bristly scrubbing brush and a large bar of yellow lye soap. She got to work, scrubbing my father until his skin was covered in suds and turned bright red and shiny. He had a rather cowed, sheepish expression on his face, but underneath he seemed to acknowledge that this was a good thing she was doing. Then she tossed a bucket of cold rinse water over him, and sent him off to walk a long, dim forest path into the distance. This seemed to be a path of reflection for him, a place and time for deep thought.
This was a comforting vision for me, a confirmation that Frau Holle was taking my father in hand now that he was in her realm, cleaning him up and setting him on a better path for the healing of his souls.
Frey’s Compassion
Frey is the beating heart of This-World: Veraldr-God. His vigorous, vital power flows through the mountains and plains, fields and forests, the seas and rivers, cool rain and the heat of the sun, bringing surging life in its many shapes and forms to all that he flows through. He brings frith with him, supporting the strong fabric of healthy relationships and community, feeding the roots that undergird a peaceful, productive, and lively society.
Frey steps from shadow into sunlight in all his magnificence: a man, a stag, a God, a frith-king, a brother, father, husband, friend, bringing the vigor of Life with him in all his forms. The glowing mantle of his strong, life-renewing compassion covers all that is; we need only wake up and see that it is there. Absorb it into your being, use it to renew the vitality and eagerness of your own heart, your own life and souls, and pass it on to others around you.
Frith and Generosity
These are examples of compassion given by our Holy Ones, based on my own experiences. You may experience their compassion differently, but I offer the assurance that compassion can indeed be found from them and with them. As I mentioned earlier, they do expect us to accept compassion in the form they offer it, which may not be in the form, nor from the Deity, that we think we are seeking. We need to realize that the form of compassion, and the one who offers it, are important aspects of their gift to us. There is likely to be some kind of push or spur toward action in their gifts of compassion: a push toward the inner action of growing our own wisdom and compassion, or toward outer action to resolve our situation, or likely both.
The Heathen values of frith and generosity, which can be found in the old writings and practices, are linked with compassion and should grow out of it. As we receive compassion from our Holy Ones and ancestral spirits, so should we pass it on to the world around us, expressed in gestures of frith and generosity of hand, heart, and spirit.