Winifred Hodge Rose
I’m using this page as a blog-space to share my personal experiences of our Heathen Deities. Check back in from time to time; I’ll be adding more!
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Frigg
Here are two of my favorite spae-visions of Frigg, showing aspects of her many powers.
Vision 1: Frigg is clothed in midnight blue, seated on a stool in cosmic space beside Ginnungagap. The Gap is filled with a seething mass of runes, coruscating gold and black like embers in a primal fire. Frigg reaches in for a handful of this rune-mass, twists it about her distaff, and out of it spins the threads of the material worlds, wrapped around her spindle-axis.
Vision 2: Frigg is dressed in a power-suit, standing at the head of the conference table in a Boardroom / Doomstead. She lays her briefcase on the table, and I see that its combination lock shows runes instead of numbers. I realize that the runes on the lock change, depending on the situation that the Board of Directors is dealing with. Whichever runes appear on the lock guide them in ‘unlocking’ wise rede and strategies for decisions and actions. As Frigg opens her briefcase I notice her wristwatch. It has no numbers or other figures on it. Instead, it is a silvery, misty hologram of the Well of Wyrd. Through it she can discern the Well and consult with the Norns, bringing knowledge of orlog, wyrd and scyld to the Boardroom / Doomstead and the directions and actions that are decided upon there.
Ing-Frey
I haven’t written much about one of the Deities I’m closest to, Ing-Frey, because so much of my experience of him is wordless and ineffable. My attitude toward him is probably closer to true worship than it is toward the other Deities, with whom I have more like friendship and partnership relations.
In meditation I often see Ing-Frey at a distance, wading toward me through a fertile wetland, surrounded by a huge aura of rose-gold light glowing against a misty sunset. He exudes divine power, but warm and inviting, not distant and overpowering. I simply gaze and absorb what he offers; I have no words for this, only the resonance in my heart that is tuned to his. In this resonance is the wordless song we sing together.
I often interact with Ing-Frey not through the image of person-to-person contact such as a dialog, but rather as a mighty current of energy which I can join through my sensations. I hear him as the beating Heart of the World, as a baby hears the powerful beat of her father’s heart when she lies on his chest. This beating of Veraldr-God’s Heart surrounds, penetrates and vitalizes everything in the world, including our own beating hearts. I feel Frey’s power like a mighty, all-encompassing ocean current flowing through the Worlds: swift, frothy, joyful, salty with nourishment and flavor, the perfect blend of coolness and warmth. His power is immense, yet it does not overwhelm; it nourishes and vitalizes all that is. Like a playful dolphin or otter, I flow along within this mighty current and pulsation of life-giving power and joy: the heart and soul of Veraldr-God.
From time to time I ask the Deities with whom I interact what they would like to have me do. Frigg is my greatest task-master, or she has been in the past; having worn me out, she’s a little less demanding than she used to be! With Ing-Frey, I am honored and delighted by the task he sometimes asks of me: to join him in blessing the smallest Landwights. In meditation, he asks me to sit with him in a forest glade in the gloaming-tide, with the shadows of dusk creeping out, fireflies and moths flittering about, and the moon rising over the trees. We are surrounded by a crowd of very small Landwights, many of whom have their babies with them. Some of them come forward one by one with their little ones and lay the tiny creatures in my cupped hands. Ing-Frey’s power of life billows around us all, but for some reason he chooses to channel it to these Landwights through me, rather than directly. I don’t know why he chooses that, but I absolutely love holding those tiny lives in my hands and filling them—and me—with Ing-Frey’s blessing.
Frau Holle
Almost thirty years ago I had a dream that set me solidly on the Heathen path. In the deep woods at midnight an enormous wild sow approached me, her lean shoulders higher than my head. Her bristly fur was silver, shining with its own light like the moon, a luminous and numinous Presence. She came up next to me and nudged my shoulder gently but inexorably, changing my direction onto a new path. As we walked along together, she took my hand into her fearsomely-tusked maw and held it there. Somehow, she bit off my hand and swallowed it, and at the same time did not bite it off, but left it attached to me, still holding it gently in her mouth. I knew her name was Holle.
I know that Frau Holle does not normally appear as a wild sow; one might assume that this was Freya instead. But this was not Freya’s golden battle-swine; it was a deep-woods / underworld being who guides folk through the dark and the unknown, challenging our willingness to follow and our willingness to understand, without being told, what she wants of us. In folklore Frau Holle often changes appearance: sometimes a lovely, elusive vision of a woman, often a practical matron, sometimes an old woman with grey hair, a bristly chin, a big nose and Big Teeth—perhaps this guise is not so very different from the great, tusky wild sow!
This Frau-Hollen-Sau still walks beside me; I can feel her at my shoulder and my hand in her mouth. She keeps me on the path, and her possession of my hand is her fierce blessing that calls me toward writing as the main expression of my Heathen path.
Thor
I can’t agree at all with the portrayal of Thor as a thick-headed oaf. I have experienced him many times in the form of a down-to-earth yeoman farmer, wise in the ways of the land and the needs of everyday life. Farmers, too, were often looked down on and disrespected by ‘aristocrats’ of various types. Yet, a successful subsistence farmer must be wise and disciplined in many ways: when and how to plant or slaughter; how much to eat now and how much to save for future planting or breeding. How to make best use of scarce resources. How to adapt to weather and climate. Careful planning and disciplined execution of those plans. Fair management and guidance for all the folk of the farm, and training for the youngsters. The skills of breeding and selection, planning for the future.
Thor has shown me time and again that he can guide the practical management of resources, any resources, and lend his power in the execution of the resulting tasks. His strength supports us in dealing practically with the unexpected, with challenges and even disasters of all kinds, with scarcity as well as abundance. He leads us away from being helpless whiners, overwhelmed by life. He’s a Can-Do God, and his children follow him in that. The old Heathen poets don’t talk about these earthy things except to scoff at them, but the fact that Thor is the farmer’s God says a lot when we understand what farming is all about: rolling up our sleeves and digging down into the dirt of everyday tasks to make a good life out of what we have.
Vor
I see Vor as an emanation of Frigg, or as a daughter of Frigg and Odin. She personifies the power of Awareness that goes beyond ‘information’ and even beyond ‘wisdom’, that plunges deeply into experiential knowing. This is ‘knowing’ with our whole being: mind, body, feelings, instincts, intuition, knowing with the powers of all our souls. This awareness happens when we can clear our mind of preconceptions, clear our emotions of the many reactive triggers we all have, and open our senses and perceptions to what lies beyond the boundaries of our self, on both material and non-material levels. Each of us has Vor’s power within us; she calls us to this deep and simple, yet splendid, way of experiencing the Worlds. Her gift of awareness is a great treasure, a distillation of the forms of wisdom that her ‘parents’ (in my understanding) Frigg and Odin possess. Unlike their more active, sometimes even turbulent, forms of wisdom, Vor’s awareness is still and serene. By resting in this deep, still pool of Vor’s, we can absorb the ability to be aware, and strengthen it as a habit within ourselves, bringing it back with us to enrich and enhance our Midgard life on practical as well as spiritual levels. Being aware is wise and healthy, in all the circumstances of our lives.
Heimdal
For years, Heimdal would come to me during seidh-work in response to requests from other people, coming for their sakes. Most often he came in response to young men who were needing some form of guidance or initiation into Heathen paths of manhood, and the interesting thing was how Heimdal managed to communicate a good response to these men, while at the same time obscuring from me, as the spaewife, the core of these ‘men’s mysteries.’ When I spoke to the men afterwards, they felt satisfied with clear guidance, yet I did not fully understand what had been communicated. Based on my experiences, it seems that Heimdal is much involved with initiations. Not too surprising, considering his ‘initiation’ of generations or social classes as the godly traveler Rig.
I was fascinated by what I perceived of Heimdal in this way, and wanted to speak with him on my own behalf, but all I got in response to my prayers was a distant, abstracted smile from him, no engagement. I continued to ask from time to time, very politely, for a more personal response. Finally after years, during a spaefaring on my own behalf, I saw him standing at the gate where I enter the spae-realms; here is my account.
I turn toward Heimdal and he puts both his hands against the sides of my head, his lips against my forehead. He hums strongly, filling me with vibrations. His humming turns to light, rainbow light, brighter and brighter, blinding. Rainbows everywhere, bewildering, shining forth from Heimdal’s chest. The light and humming vibrate fiercely, overwhelmingly, in my blood, re-tuning me to a different frequency and awakening connections through my blood, my ancestry, the callings of the ancient ones.
A distant echo of a horn. As the horn calls, the rainbows slowly form into a bridge across the air. Heimdal steps out onto it, passes into light. His horn still echoes, all colors around me are supernaturally bright and vibrant, there is a sense of gladness everywhere, the air itself is golden. A God has walked here. The horn still calls, singing of beginnings, not endings.
Vidar
I know that Vidar is viewed as a God of vengeance, but he is also called the Silent God. His silence is sometimes seen as the result of a vow to keep silent until vengeance has taken place. For myself, I experience a very different side of him: I see him as a patron of hermits who treasure silence and solitude. Vidar’s broad domain, Landvidi, is a vast and quiet land of undisturbed nature. He himself appears to me as a quietly smiling, very large man, young and strong. We do not speak together: he does not teach or guide or direct me; I do not query or request anything, but our silent companionship is deeply precious to me. We sit beside a small campfire at night under the stars in the vast expanse of Landvidi, walk along its rolling hills, woods and brooks, and watch the magnificent sunrises over the roof of his home, shaped like the Dagaz rune, where many birds like to perch to greet the morning sun. I feel very close to him, spend a lot of time in Landvidi, and feel the meaningfulness of our shared silence and solitude.