Winifred Hodge Rose
The concept of the four basic metaphysical elements of Fire, Water, Earth and Air that developed in the ancient Greek and other Mediterranean cultures was not, as far as I know, embedded into the philosophy, medicine, and other aspects of ancient Heathen cultures as it was in the Greek worldview. Nevertheless, the elder Heathens were certainly familiar with the corresponding physical elements, and Norse cosmogony recognized the powers of Fire and Ice. I find the classical Elements to be useful concepts or metaphors for exploring aspects of cosmic mysteries, and have written about their roles in structuring modes of interaction with our Deities (see “Earth, Water, Wind and Fire: Elemental Modes for Relating to the Deities” on this website). In this article I’m turning to these four elements again to structure a conceptual path toward deeper understanding of the work that some of our Heathen souls engage in.
Note that this is a discussion of advanced Heathen soul lore, and does not explain the basics. For background information about each of the souls discussed here, I’ve provided links at the end of this article. Also, please note that Fire is not absent from the nature and workings of our other souls that are not discussed here—Hama, Aldr, Mod, Hugr, Sefa. But as mystical expressions of Fire working through the other three metaphorical elements, I find that Ahma / Ghost, Ferah, and Saiwalo are especially illustrative of this phenomenon.
The focus here is on elemental Fire as something analogous to an active life-force, though it takes different expressions in different Worlds and the souls that are native to them; it is not always equivalent to what we experience as the life-force here in Midgard. I’d like to use a different term for ‘life-force’ in this context, but it’s difficult to figure out what that might be! It’s something like the ‘motive force of Being,’ which is an awkward phrase and not very clear in meaning. As I proceed here, I hope the meaning will become clearer.
The basic idea is that four of our souls—Ahma with its shape-soul the Ghost, Ferah, and Saiwalo—are expressions of Fire reflected through each of the other three elements. Ahma / Ghost is Fire-in-Air. Ferah is Fire-in-Earth. Saiwalo is Fire-in-Water. Fire vivifies these souls by expressing itself through the other elements, since pure Fire is not conducive to life as we experience it. Pure Fire, Fire-in-Fire is, I believe, part of the nature of Time, as I shall discuss. These three souls are natives of the Upper (Ahma), Middle (Ferah), and Lower (Saiwalo) Worlds, each of them expressions of the Hidden Fire running through the Tree of Life. (See my article “Vafrloge: The Hidden Fire and its Runic Channels” on this website.) Let’s explore each of these Soul-Fires in turn.
Ahma and Ghost: Fire-in-Air
Ahma-soul is composed of Air, but its force-in-action is Wode, and Wode is Fire. Air nourishes and grows Fire. Thus, the Being-in-action of Ahma is Fire working through the properties of Air. Inspiration, enlightenment, spiritual and mental kindling, flights of the spirit, even spiritual conflagration in positive or negative forms: these states-of-being are triggered and nourished by Wode working through our Ahma soul and expressing into our Ghost-soul in Midgard.
Ghost serves as a container of Ahma, Air, and Wode, shaping and expressing it into our Midgard life and actions—preferably in a controlled and constructive way! Wode-Fire is how the life-force or the motive-force-of-Being expresses itself through our mind and spirit: while we are in Midgard, and also in the afterlife states of Ghost and Ahma. By learning how to express and work with it in constructive ways while living in Midgard, we prepare our Ghost to handle the more intense Wode-power it will experience in its afterlife environment with the Deities: Wode-power that is unmediated and unmitigated by the density and distractions of earthly life.
Fire-in-Air is a process of sparking, enkindling, igniting Wode and its actions. The metaphorical ‘smoke’ that arises from Wode consists of tiny ‘particles’ that become the seeds of our thoughts, ideas, insights, inspirations, and potentially obsessions as well.
Ferah: Fire-in-Earth
Our physical Earth, our planet, was a fiery being in its early formation, and it still is underneath its surface layers. The core of our planet is thought to be primarily iron and nickel, at a very high temperature but solid due to the immense pressure exerted on it. It is surrounded by a mantle of fluid magma, likewise formed of iron and nickel at fiery temperatures. It is thanks to the magnetic nature of this core earth-fire that our planet has a magnetosphere wrapped around it and extending past the atmosphere, protecting Earth from cosmic radiation and preventing our atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind.
I like to regard this phenomenon as yet another example of how Thor and the power of his magnetic-iron Hammer protects Midgard and his mother Earth! In another metaphor, I think of the magnetosphere as the Earth’s Ealdoryard, the outer boundary of Alda Ve—the sanctuary of all Aldr life-souls. It is the Earth’s sacred life-force that provides shelter and nourishment to all earthly beings, as our own Aldr-soul does for each of us.
I think that Ferah’s power originates through ancient Deities named as Fjørgynn and Fjørgyn in Old Norse, referred to as Frigg’s father and Thor’s mother, respectively. I see them as Sky-and-Storm God and Earth Goddess, known by many names in many places. They represent the fire of lightning and vibrations of thunder working through the vital essence of Earth to bring earthly beings to life. This is the power of Ferah, born of earth, thunder and lightning.
Ferah is a life-soul or living substance that vivifies living beings in Midgard and circulates through the processes and phenomena of Nature. This vivid, energizing power of Ferah is like Fire, in the form of sparks of life, warmth, activity, life-processes at work at all levels of being. It is not pure Fire, but Fire working through Earth: energy working through vital substance, enlivening it, giving material substance the powers of life, action, motive-force-of-Being.
Fire-in-Earth is a process of solidification, of energy grounded into matter and working through matter. The metaphorical ‘smoke’ that arises from our own Ferah-soul’s Fire-in-Earth passes on to our Hama-soul and solidifies into our Lich-Hama, our shaped, ensouled, living physical body.
Saiwalo: Fire-in-Water
Fire and water together form powerful symbolism that appears in many mythologies around the world, as well as in modes of thought such as alchemy and Jungian psychology. For me, the image of fire, shining blue-green-gold through deep water, is a very evocative subject for deep meditation. This image stems from my Saiwalo-soul: a calling for me to follow it deep within, to plunge into Saiwalo’s depths and experience its mysteries.
Based on my understanding of Saiwalo-soul, it is the Hel-Dweller, an outside-of-earthly-life soul who sends up a phantom of itself, its Dwimor, to ensoul a human in Midgard. Its environment in Hel is like a fertile wetland that processes all the ‘spiritual waste’ draining down from the other Worlds on the Tree and slowly creates purified spiritual water to feed the roots of the Tree. The raw material of this spiritual water is, in my understanding, formed of images that are generated by, and circulated among, living beings in Midgard and in the other Worlds.
Fire-in-Water presents itself to me as an expression of the Vafrloge, the mystical wavering flames, that are generated from Thor’s lightning above the Tree and flow down to Asgard along the antlers of the great Stag who stands in the top branches of the Tree. He is named Eikthyrnir, the Oak-Stinger, a kenning for lightning. The stag’s antlers mimic both the branching shapes of lightning-strikes, and the branches of the great Tree of Worlds. These Vafrloge flames condense into water as they run along Eikthyrnir’s antlers, flowing first into Asgard and thence to the other Worlds through the channels within the great Tree. But these waters contain their engendering Vafrloge flames within them, ready to ignite again under the right circumstances. As they, trickling down the Tree in water form, reach the worlds of the dead, they become mystical flames that flicker over burial mounds of the dead, over buried treasures, over pathways to otherworldly afterlife realms. (See my articles Vafrloge: The Hidden Fire and its Runic Channels, and Hel-Dweller.)
Vafrloge are thus mystical flames of Fire-in-Water, igniting the shimmering images of the Saiwalo-souls in Hel as they work in and through the watery images of Hel and send those images out through their Dwimor-phantoms into Midgard. Saiwalo’s work, and its connections with Fire and Water, are complex and are discussed in my series of articles about Saiwalo on this website. When I incorporate the imagery of Fire-in-Water with the imagery of the Vafrloge and the Saiwalo-souls in the wetlands of Hel, this creates for me a very deep and powerful set of images that are beyond words to describe, but which nourish all my souls through the actions of Fire-in-Water.
The metaphorical ‘smoke’ that arises from Fire-in-Water is a form of condensation as it rises from watery Hel into Midgard, solidifying into our Dwimor: Saiwalo’s projection into the Midgard-plane. Dwimor forms the salty alchemical core that attracts and bonds all our individual souls together to create and sustain us as Midgard-beings in this life.
Time: Fire-in-Fire
My thought is that Fire itself, unmediated by the other Elements, reflects the actions of Time. It consumes itself; by its actions and nature it devours what it is. Fire and Time are perpetual transformation and change. Fire has no stability or form of its own, while Time, by its very nature, involves change and transformation. Through the actions of Time, nothing remains the same. In our mythology Fire is counterbalanced by Ice with its timeless stability, unchanging form which undergoes no transformation or change: a reflection of timelessness.
In between those polarities lies Ginnungagap, the Chasm of Potential, from which all active Being arises, including our souls and the Worlds they inhabit. Fire, by expressing itself through the other Elements of Air, Earth, and Water, stabilizes and forms itself into shapes that embody its vital force and aspects of change, but without being devoured by the consuming nature of pure Fire. Fire leaves behind it embers and ashes: these are Fire-Seeds that sprout into being through the powers of the other Elements.
Soul-Fires
Fire-in-Air—Ahma, Wode, and Ghost—is a matter of kindling, igniting inspiration within us, the Fire of our spirit. Fire-in-Earth is solidification, bringing the energies of lightning and thunder to vivify the solid substance of our Earth-bodies. Fire-in-Water is condensation, gathering the mysteries of Otherworldly Fires into the flux and flow of our Saiwalo-souls and their work within our selves and the Worlds. Fire-in-Fire is transformation, a form of vital force as long as it works through the other Elements. All living beings undergo transformation during every moment of time: cellular processes of life and growth, thought processes, motions and emotions, actions and reactions, all of them embodiments of transformation in Time.
Ahma’s soul-fire, working from the highest levels of the Tree, kindles and ignites our life, our souls and their actions. Saiwalo’s soul-fire condenses the powers that pool at the roots of the Tree—the mysteries of the great Wells and the fertile waters of Hel’s wetlands—and sends that condensation up to fertilize all lives in Midgard. Ferah gathers up those fires, their smokes and sparks, and puts them to work in the material, living world of Midgard, at the center of the Tree. Time, Fire-in-Fire, provides the fourth-dimensional space within which these soul-fires can, over time, transform us and all the Worlds we live in and are engaged with.
Background reading:
Ahma and Ghost:
https://heathensoullore.net/ond-ahma-ghost-and-breath-basic-meanings/
https://heathensoullore.net/ahma-soul-as-initiator-of-being/
Ferah:
https://heathensoullore.net/born-of-trees-and-thunder-the-ferah-soul/
Saiwalo:
https://heathensoullore.net/hel-dweller-the-saiwalo-soul-part-1/
https://heathensoullore.net/the-soul-and-the-sea/
https://heathensoullore.net/the-alchemy-of-hel-part-iv/
Vafrloge:
https://heathensoullore.net/vafrloge-the-hidden-fire-and-its-runic-channels/