Winifred Hodge Rose
Assigned reading:
Primary runes in this bind-rune: Hagalaz, Othala, Eihwaz, Sowilo, Ingwaz, Berkano, Kenaz.
Summary of Saiwalo
Here is a brief summary of my Saiwalo articles, describing my understanding of this soul. Saiwalo is an afterlife soul, little involved in Midgard life. It is rooted in Hel, and forms a phantom from itself, a Dwimor, which it projects into the Midgard plane. The Dwimor serves as an alchemical matrix which attracts and holds together our other souls and their energies during Midgard life. Saiwalo, through its Dwimor-matrix, holds us in life, and therefore is a life-soul whose departure means death, but it does not actively participate in our life or give us life-energy as our other souls do. Dwimor itself is not a stand-alone soul; it is a phantom image that Saiwalo projects into Midgard, which returns to its Saiwalo in Hel when physical life is over.
Saiwalo remains rooted in Hel, whether it is currently supporting a Dwimor in Midgard, or not. There, the Saiwalos form the ecosystem of Hel, which I envision (on one level) as being like a wetland which processes the spiritual waste draining down from the life-worlds above. Very slowly, through repeated cycles, the waste material is transformed into nourishing elemental Water that percolates up through the roots of the Tree and into all the Worlds.
The actual material that Saiwalos work with consists of ‘images’ (we could call them ‘memes,’ too): in esoteric terms, they are patterns imprinted within a watery matrix. Saiwalos themselves generate images and send them to Midgard through their Dwimors. In Midgard, the images / memes from all the Saiwalos enter human experience, through all the senses of our sensorium, our body’s energy patterns, our emotions and thought processes. They churn together, interacting, breaking down, recombining, sparking new images. These images are all expressed in many ways: in our experiences, in the information and ideas we exchange, stories we tell, things we see / hear about / do ourselves, in our dreams and nightmares, aspirations and ideals, fears and hopes, our stereotypes and prejudices, our triggers, imprints, fantasies and inspirations. The entire world of human thought, experience and communication is formed and stored as images.
Dwimor, during its time in Midgard, gathers the images experienced by its living person, including the other souls of their ‘soular system’. This is Dwimor’s treasure hoard, which it will bring back to its Saiwalo after death. Saiwalo and Dwimor do not have the capacity to evaluate these images, to judge their worthiness or harmfulness, to make choices between some images and others, to reject images according to any kind of criteria. Saiwalo-Dwimor values images for their energy-density, their intensity, rather than valuing them as positive or negative the way a living human would.
Thus, images that cause PTSD in a living person may be tightly held by the Dwimor because of their intensity, while counteracting, healing, positive images might be grasped less tightly because they are less-believed, less-attended to, less intensely felt, by the afflicted person. In addition to the physical and behavioral aspects of PTSD that make it difficult to heal, Saiwalo-Dwimor’s unthinking attachment to intense image-energy can contribute to the problem as well. The same dynamic can also amplify obsessions and compulsions.
I’ve pointed out a number of times that Saiwalo-Dwimor is a passive soul in Midgard, not participating actively in our Midgard life. To clarify: the images that Saiwalo-Dwimor generates, transmits, absorbs, and transforms do strongly influence us during our Midgard life, so it might seem that this soul is an active one in Midgard. This is not how I understand it. Saiwalo is active in Hel, doing its own thing. It is not, itself, actively participating in the character, thoughts, emotions, temperament, decisions, actions, that define our Midgard life. Saiwalo-Dwimor, through its activities in Hel, churns images that flow back and forth through the Worlds, while our full soul-household in Midgard actively deals with those images and their influences on our life.
When our Midgard life is at an end, Dwimor heads back to its Saiwalo in Hel, bearing its hoard of image-treasures with it. Saiwalo, along with all the Dwimors it has generated, sent out, and received back over time, uses the ingathered images to populate its environment. Thus, depending on the nature of the images, Saiwalo’s environment may be filled with treasures of knowledge, power, beauty and meaningfulness; or with images of fear, suffering, ugliness, hatred, degradation, chaos; or may simply be a dull, boring, meaningless landscape. Underneath this level of image-appearances, the alchemical-ecological wetland nature of Hel and its Saiwalos slowly works away, fermenting, distilling, regenerating, transforming the images into new ones with the potential for renewing and nourishing the imaginal energies of the Worlds.
The Impacts of Cultural Beliefs
Images are conceptual containers for beliefs, and the whole jumble of cultural beliefs about ‘Hel, hell, Underworld, pit of entropy, death, guilt, sin, punishment, evil, despair’ and so on is a massive attractor and generator of powerful and terrible images. These images have a huge impact on us all, even when we think we don’t accept or believe them. Even when we don’t follow the religions that teach versions of those beliefs, or follow any religion at all, the beliefs easily bleed over into our value systems and personal beliefs. For example, ideas about ‘virtue, sin, punishment, reward’ motivate all kinds of contemporary behavior such as dieting, personal habits, parenting, political positions, matters relating to law and judicial systems, etc. These attitudes can lead to vindictiveness, victimization, sado-masochism, and many other distortions of character and beliefs. The many people suffering in situations of apparent hopelessness—addiction, homelessness, hunger, unemployability, incarceration, exploitation, oppression, unending strife—often feel like they are ‘living in hell’. There is plenty of cultural material to feed the perpetuation of overwhelmingly negative imagery about ‘hell’, on both conscious and unconscious levels.
The impact of these beliefs and images on our Saiwalo-Dwimors is hard and heavy. Even just writing about it makes me feel heavy and overburdened, ready to crawl into a hole and give up! I won’t go into any more detail about the negativity here, because all of us can do this very well for ourselves. My reason for bringing it up, however, is to lead into an understanding of its impact on our Dwimors, Saiwalos, and on the shaping of Hel itself.
Dwimor Grips Image-Energy
Dwimor picks up images as a form of energy, and the stronger the energy of the image, the more tightly Dwimor holds onto it. This isn’t because Dwimor necessarily ‘likes’ the image, but because Dwimor’s nature is a salty, alchemical matrix designed to grasp and hold. That is its life-serving function in Midgard: to form the core which grasps and holds all our souls, body, and life-energies together as a functioning whole.
Of course Dwimor is going to hold most strongly to the strongest energies: our souls and all the energies that they generate and draw into our being. But next in line for Dwimor are the images that come into our consciousness, from whatever source, and which we shape and nurture with our own imagination-functions. The images that have the strongest grip on our awareness, our emotions and attention, are the ones that Dwimor will hang onto most firmly, even if we wish, on a conscious level, that we could get rid of them.
Gradually, over our lifetime, Dwimor builds its soul-hoard, its treasure-trove, of powerful, gripping images that have occupied our attention, thoughts and emotions during our life. This is what it brings back to Saiwalo and Hel, and this is what shapes the Hel-environment around it until Hel’s alchemical-wetland functions gradually process and reshape these energies. But this is not the end of the story: Hel and the Saiwalos are not as sequestered, as closed-off, as they might seem. Hel is permeable, and the Saiwalos are connected to the Dwimors in Midgard, while the Dwimors are connected to the other souls in our ‘soular-system’. The image-energies brought down by Dwimor are not fixed in place, but continue to seep back and forth between Midgard and Hel, mixing and combining in unpredictable ways, before they are transformed through many iterations of Hel’s alchemical processes.
Exercise 14-1: Growing your Awareness of Images
Whether we realize it and intend it, or not, our lifetime inner activity of imaging is actually a matter of world-building: our personal world / Werold and framework of thought, Midgard-world, and Hel-world are all shaped by human imaging. Imaging guides and shapes our material creations and physical activities. Our mental use and interpretation of images shapes our emotions, reactions, attitudes and behavior. The impacts of these activities continue, even after our Midgard life is over. When we are wielding this kind of power that affects us and all around us, it is vital to be aware of what we are doing, why we are doing it, and whether this is really how we want to be doing it.
This is a gradual exercise, a focusing of your awareness on the images you carry within you, and the images ‘out there’ which influence others and the world around you. One way that this is often done, is to examine and be aware of the stories you tell yourself: about yourself and your motives and reactions, about the people you interact with, about the larger world we hear about in the news, from books and films, etc. As an example, a hot topic right now is the image of “the police”. What is your image of them? Hostile, dangerous, helpful, brutal, protective, corrupt, ‘on my side’, ‘against me’, ‘my guys’, necessary evil, misunderstood, mixed bag, total confusion, all of the above? What do you picture, what do you feel, when you say the word ‘police’? All of this: pictures, feelings, reactions, opinions, emotions, thoughts, all together are your ‘image’ of the police.
How about your image of yourself? What are the words you call yourself? How do you regard your looks, behavior, abilities, activities? What images motivate you? Are they largely positive and inspired, or negative, hostile, fearful of consequences if you fail to do whatever? Who would you most like to be like, whether in looks, achievements, position, possessions, opportunities, whatever? Who are you most afraid to be like? What are your images of ‘success’ or ‘failure’ in areas that matter to you?
What are your hopes, longings, fears—what images do all these questions I’ve listed here trigger in you? What about just individual words or names: many are loaded with imagery, terms like “vacation, money, enemy, home, work, trap, sweet, love, hate.” Or how about relationship-words: “Daughter, son, mother, father, grandparent, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, baby,” etc. Look at the images you have of your family members, boss and coworkers, neighbors. Say these trigger-words to yourself, and note what springs to mind: visual images, emotional reactions, triggers, gut feelings. All these images are the way we shape our perceptions, reactions and motivations, but they are imperfect tools, and we need to learn to see the flaws in the images we shape about ourself and everyone else.
As you can see, this could go on forever, for a lifetime. For now, just pick a few areas to examine. One point of this is to become aware of how we shape ourself and the world around us through imaging. The other point is to begin seeing where these images come from: your own personal experience? The media? Things other people tell you? Things you absorbed from your environment as a child? Out of the blue, you don’t know where? Move into the realization that we exist in a surging sea of images, and it’s a challenge to navigate through them, consciously and with clear intent.
Saiwalo and Sowilo
The similarity between these two words, the Saiwalo-soul and the Sowilo-rune, is intriguing. Though I haven’t (yet) found a linguistic connection between them, their similarity forms a useful basis for meditation and intuitive work. The Sowilo rune represents the Sun, victory, life-energy, light. The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem, using the Anglo-Saxon form of Sowilo, Sigel, says that “Sigel is ever the hope of seamen as they fare over the fishes’ bath, until they bring the sea-stallion to land.” The sea-stallion or wave-stallion is a poetic image for a boat or ship, bucking and tossing over the waves.
Here, we see that the Sun is the guide, encouragement and hope for those navigating a tiny craft over wide, unknown waters. We’ve explored the connection between Saiwalo and the sea (in my article “The Soul and the Sea”), and the sea is also an image or metaphor for the human ‘unconscious’, all the deep, unrecognized, unknown parts of ourselves. To enrich the imagery of this runic verse, I like to pick up on the sound-similarity of ‘sigel’ and ‘seagull’, and point out that seagulls’ habitat is relatively close to land, not far out at sea. Seeing gulls around your boat is a sign that land is near.
Exercise 14-2: Navigating the Sea of Images
Now let’s take this runic imagery and apply it to what I wrote earlier: We exist in a surging sea of images, and it’s a challenge to navigate through them, consciously and with clear intent. For this exercise, I offer the following meditation imagery.
We’re a small crew in a small boat, tossing on the trackless sea, on a cloudy night. All directions seem the same to us. We feel overwhelmed, unable to decide which way to go. Then, as light seeps over the horizon, a dawn wind picks up and blows away the clouds. Sun springs into the eastern sky, and we are able to orient ourselves. After some discussion among the crew, we now know which direction to aim toward, and hope rises in us with the sun. As we sail or row toward the island that is our goal, we see in the distance flocks of white birds. Soon, their cries surround us, telling us that land is near. Filled with energy and courage, the gifts of the Sun, we approach our home-island with a sense of victory and achievement.
In this meditation, the sea represents Saiwalo’s deep, mysterious, unknown nature, and the surging waves represent all the images that our Saiwalo-Dwimor and everyone else’s toss up and mix around in the Midgard-plane. The dark, cloudy night is a state of unknowing, a state without guide-points or direction as we float there on the sea of images. Our boat contains our crew, our soul-household, and may be sturdy and well-built, or flimsy and leaky. The Sun gives us our sense of direction, and courage and energy to follow that direction toward victory over all obstacles that are hindering us. The island is our goal that we want to reach, a place of stability, nourished and influenced by the Sea, but providing us with the other resources our soul-household needs for a stable life.
I want to emphasize again: what we are navigating across and through is a Sea of Images, the tossing sea of our own Saiwalo and everyone else’s, that churns the subliminal realms of our imagination and influences all the expressions of our consciousness.
In this exercise, I encourage you to explore the personal nature of the images I’ve offered. What is the boat of yourself like, and what condition is it in? How do your crew-members / souls relate to and respond to the Sea of Images? With interest, respect, wanting to explore; with fear or terror? What are your personal gifts from the Sea, treasured images that the waves have brought to you? What is your Sun, that offers you a way to choose a direction among the surging sea of images that surrounds you? Are you swept away toward a different direction by every wind that blows, or do you know the land you are heading toward, and how to use the currents of images, the winds and the waves, to bring you closer to it? Do you hear the seagulls crying, calling you toward your landing? And what is the landing you are heading toward, the island that holds your hope, your chance for a stable life with all the inner resources you need to live well? And perhaps most importantly, how do each of your souls react and respond to this imagery? The response is likely to be different, for your different souls.
Give this plenty of time; let all these images gently and naturally arise and play out in your mind, explore them in your Daybook. You may well find that they change over time, and that your understanding deepens as they change.
Feeding the Images
Now let’s work on some of Saiwalo-Dwimor’s dynamics. If you’ve worked on Exercise 1, you’ve probably had strong reactions to some of the images, and it may be hard to turn them off, or if you do, they may keep popping up again. These can be positive or negative images: ones you enjoy dwelling on and don’t want to turn off, or ones that are upsetting, angering, fearful, and grab your attention because you unconsciously feel you can’t afford to turn your back on them, you need to stay alert.
In Hel-Dweller, I talked about the fascination that stories and images can exert on us, which can be pleasant or unpleasant forms of fascination. Either way, for different reasons, we find it hard to let go. Fascination is a form of strong soul-energy, and any of our souls may be caught up in it; each soul has things they are fascinated by. The energy of fascination acts as a lure to our Dwimor, who recognizes the image as an energy-treasure and grabs onto it for its hoard.
Fascination, attention, fixation, mental and emotional energy, repetition, obsession, whether in positive or negative forms: these things feed our images the way warm oceans feed hurricanes. They control which images Dwimor collects for its hoard, and takes back to Saiwalo and Hel. In one way, this works out well: Dwimor can haul off the powerful negative imagery to Hel’s wetland and get it processed and reshaped. But this is a slow, and even random process, and in the meantime the negative stuff has more chance to circulate and influence people and events.
Image-Winnowing
It makes sense for us to play an active role in the process of winnowing, sorting and shaping the images that Dwimor grasps onto, while we are here in Midgard, with all our souls working together. ‘Winnowing’ is the process of separating the useful from the useless, like separating grain from husks and chaff. It is up to each of us, to decide what ‘useful’ and ‘useless’, ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ images consist of, and to proceed accordingly.
Negative images may well be useful ones, if they are used as lessons, warnings, examples of what to steer away from, what the consequences of certain choices may be. Negative imagery can also offer catharsis, a cleansing of the emotions and the spirit after great trauma and trials, as many dramas and stories, ancient and modern, seek to offer. Imagery of trials and tribulations, sadness and sorrows, mourning and regret, can be turned into beauty and power, can bring relief, wisdom, inspiration to overcome, acceptance of ørlög and wyrd. Imagery of threats, injustice and danger can inspire bravery and action to overcome the threats.
The problems begin when negative imagery declines into sheer awfulness, degradation, evil, cruelty, horror, despair, and sticks there immovably, with no redeeming purpose or function other than the dregs of addictive fascination. Negativity in the form of worthlessness, meaninglessness, powerlessness, a wasteland where nothing matters and no change is possible, is equally devastating.
Then there are the endless, petty, churning negativities of our everyday lives: images of resentments and grievances, emotional pains, discouragement and disappointments, selfishness of ourselves and others, neglect, scorn, guilt and blame, fears and anger, vengefulness, misunderstandings and all the rest. So much of our energy tends to get tied up, going over and over these petty negative images, reinforcing and amplifying them.
Are these the things we want to save up, to shape the imagery of our Saiwalo’s domain in Hel? (Not to mention our day to day experience during life.) Do we want to carry hell with us, down to Hel, and plant it there?? Too many people have already done that, and it has consequences in the living world as well as in the afterworld.
Exercise 14-3: Clarifying Dwimor’s Hoard
Again, this is going to be a life-long process, but we can make a start here. Be observant of your habitual thoughts, attitudes and beliefs, and the images that represent them. Be aware of images that are coming into your consciousness, every day, through many avenues of attention. What is worth keeping and strengthening? What needs to be put aside to fade away? What do you want your Dwimor to keep in its hoard, either because it is something worth keeping, or because you want it to be brought to Hel for transformation?
For images you want to keep, enhance their energy by investing your attention, thoughts and positive emotions in them. Bring the images to mind often, and represent them around you with photographs, art, music, decorations, ceremonies, celebrations, activities, sharing with family and friends. Go to sleep with the images in mind, wake up and turn to them first thing. Bring those images to life and nurture them. Link them with other good images, create image-communities, create a landscape filled with your greatest images of aspirations and longings.
There is a lot in common here, with how modern Heathens and others build relationships with Deities: we focus attention, communication, devotion, share goals and aspirations, with the profound experience-images of our Deities whom we hold in our hearts. I wrote in The Alchemy of Hel Part III, about the eidolon, the Greek word that is the root of our word ‘idol’, and which also refers to our Dwimor or spirit-form. The word ‘idol’ has negative connotations because of Christian interpretations, but it was not originally negative. It simply meant an image that was invested with sacred power, and venerated as such. That’s the kind of energy, of investment of attention, that we can bring to bear, to empower our positive images and make them attractive to our Dwimor.
For our negative images that we want to get rid of, we do the opposite: gradually starve them. Don’t pay attention to them; when they come to mind, step back, step away, turn toward something else, not because you are afraid of them, in denial, or want to avoid them, but because you don’t want to invest your precious life-energy into them. Don’t criticize or blame yourself or other people for the images, because that increases their energy. If you feel you need to understand them more deeply before you let go, work on that for a little while, but don’t get sucked into a perpetual whirlpool of analysis that isn’t going anywhere. Recognize when it’s time to let go. Shrug the weight of this negativity off your shoulders and be free.
If there are negative images that you believe are important to keep for a good reason, then work on reshaping them to fit this purpose. If it is to learn a lesson or offer a warning, weave imagery of the lesson / warning and of the desired outcome into the original imagery, don’t just focus on the hard part. Perhaps you wish to honor some tragedy or sacrifice or loss, by keeping its image in a hallowed space. If you do, be careful to be clear about your reasons for this, keep your emotions relating to it clear and healthy, not going into a negative spiral. Shape the image into the outcome that you are learning, memorializing, accepting, rather than dwelling on the pain, tragedy, negativity that led up to it.
As you live each day, be aware of the images crowding into your consciousness, from inside and outside yourself. Take an active role in deciding which ones to accept into your Dwimor’s matrix, and which ones to let glide by, not sticking to you and gumming up your works. Be aware that all images require energy in order to ‘live’, to persist and have power within us. The more attention they grab from us, the more energy they consume. Decide which ones are worth your energy, and which are not. There’s lots of important and impactful stuff going on in the world, everywhere and every day. But you can’t even try to carry images of all of this around inside you without making yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually ill and overextended. Make your own choices about which images you allow to live within you, so you can respond to them and take action in ways that are meaningful and right for you.
Images as Prayers and Magical Intentions
The last thing we’ll focus on here is this: we can carry images, even heavy, burdensome, negative ones, as a prayer, an offering, and / or as a magical intention. Again, the art of shaping the image is of the utmost importance here. Carrying a big, heavily negative image as a prayer can too easily fall into a state of blaming the Deity we’re praying to about the problem, or telling the Deity what to do about it, or collapsing into desperate helplessness and pleading, and being angry with the Deity if nothing is happening. None of this is really going to help.
I use a particular image to engage in this kind of prayer, and maybe it will give you some ideas for your own approach. I envision all of my souls and self-awareness, as energy-forms, sitting together in council along with whichever Deities I am calling in prayer about the matter (plus whichever other ones may decide to show up, as often happens). An ‘oversoul’ or over-awareness rises above us all, generated by the power of our hearts and minds, drawing us together and uniting our focus. In the midst of us is the image I am praying about, presented as an offering for our attention. I plant this focused image of our prayerful council in my Saiwalo-Dwimor, and return my awareness to it as often as I can throughout the days and nights as I work on the issue. (To add more punch to the imagery, I like to call this council a Witangemot or ‘gathering of the wise’ in Anglo-Saxon. That gives me something to try to live up to!)
Sometimes, an image arises that shows me some action I can take. Sometimes I see that I have misunderstood, and things are not as I thought they were. Sometimes, I simply gain a deeper understanding of the matter, and realize I must come to terms with it as it is, at least in regards to anything I can do about it at this time. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve added some energy and goodwill to efforts the Deities are undertaking about the matter.
Whatever the outcome, this is a worthy way to handle the burden of negative imagery, because it brings together my soul-household and our Deities in an exercise of trust, goodwill, and mutual support. This in itself becomes an image-treasure for my Dwimor’s hoard, and helps to replace the worst of the burden that the original negative image held for me. This is an example of the ‘reshaping’ or transformation of negative imagery that I’m talking about: the focus turns from negativity and helplessness, into a sense of upholding, solidarity, facing things together, clear sight, courage, even if things do not change outwardly and the problem is not actually ‘fixed.’ (And of course, sometimes it is fixed.) Either way, the image of my Witangemot that remains with my Dwimor after doing this exercise has been reshaped from the negativity it was before, into something worth keeping and growing instead of something I want to escape from.
The same type of approach can be taken for applying magical intent to a negative image that is concerning us. Here, it is essential to re-frame the negativity into a positivity. If we focus our energy and attention on images of what we don’t want, what we fear will happen or fear about what is happening, then the energy goes into those very negative images that we are trying to draw energy away from (see John Michael Greer’s excellent discussion of this in The Druid Magic Handbook, pp. 21-2). We need to form a new image of what we want to happen, focus our attention and intent, and push energy in that direction, using whatever magical techniques we customarily work with. We carefully avoid revisiting the negative images of the situation we are trying to change, so as not to feed them energy. As we do this, the new image we are creating gains energy and adheres within our Dwimor, replacing the original negative image.
This is an excellent approach and practice for clarifying and reshaping our Dwimor’s soul-hoard. I would say that it’s one of the main long-term benefits of practicing magic, overall: replacing our Dwimor’s negative or useless collection of junk-images with true soul-treasures, shaped by conscious intent, that may continue to work like yeast percolating through the Worlds, whatever our own state of life or afterlife.
Exercise 14-4: Practicing Prayer and Magical Intent
For this exercise, choose one or both approaches, prayer and / or magical intent. Design your own scenario or method of prayer and participation in the work-process of the Deities, and apply it to images and situations that concern you. Practice directing your magical intent toward transforming a negative image and its corresponding situation in the world, using methods you already know how to use, or finding new magical methods that work well for this purpose.
Working on these practices over time will help you clear, strengthen, focus, and beautify your Dwimor’s treasure-hoard, and will bring the unique transformational powers of Saiwalo-Dwimor into more prominence in your life and your Midgard concerns. The energy-connections between Hel, Midgard, and the Soul of the Earth are subtle and strange to our conscious minds, but are important for the metaphysical health of all these domains. As you learn to work more consciously with Saiwalo-Dwimor and its energies, you are also promoting healthy exchanges among the chthonic powers of these Worlds.
Book Hoard
Greer, John Michael. The Druid Magic Handbook. San Francisco CA: Weiser Books, 2007.
Note: If you like using psychological / scientific approaches, Judson Brewer’s book Unwinding Anxiety presents a way to apply psychological science toward the management of anxiety, which is basically fueled by negative images. His approach can be adapted and applied toward the exercises and purposes I discuss in this article.