Winifred Hodge Rose
Assigned reading:
Primary runes in this bind-rune: Perthro, Laguz, Jera, Nauthiz, Ingwaz, Eihwaz, Ac / Oak.
Aldr-Wita
Our Aldr soul is, among other things, a channel for nourishing spiritual energies to flow into our Lich. This inflowing nourishment is contained within our Ealdorgeard or Ealdor-yard, an energetic construct that maps onto our physical body, where our Ealdorgeard spiritually overlaps with our Lich-Hama and Ferah. Both Aldr and Ferah sense, and are affected by, the states of wellbeing and health, or of illness and suffering, of our Lichama. For those who work within a shamanic mindset, the Ealdorgeard is often the location where energy-intrusions or “worms” and other illness-causing wights make their lairs, impacting Lichama and Ferah through the Aldr soul. Grief and suffering deeply affect the Aldr, and over the long term, can cause erosion of this soul, limiting its ability to funnel spiritual nourishment into us, and falling into a vicious circle of suffering, illness and loss.
Aldr-Wita, discussed in the assigned reading, is a term I offer for a Heathen-oriented path of spiritual and physical health. Rune-work, herbalism and natural remedies, spiritual and magical healing, adjusting our lifestyle to the rhythms of nature and our true physical needs, healthy living on all levels of being, the support of a Heathen community as well as family and other communities: these are tools of Aldr-Wita, of integrated spiritual-physical health and nourishment.
Exercise 7-1: Aldr-Flow
Sit quietly and try to sense an inflow of nourishing energy within yourself. Spend time getting to know how this flow feels, feeding life-energy into every cell. Use one or more of your analog-senses to help you sense the energy of your Ealdor-yard, and how it feeds and supports your Lichama.
Once you’ve become familiar with this flow, use your inner senses and imagination to scan your body, checking to see whether there are any areas that are poorly nourished or blocked from your Aldr-power. I find the sense of taste to be most helpful here: I go through my Lich (body) in my imagination, and remain alert to how my taste-sense changes as I move my imagination around. If the flavor diminishes, or becomes less pleasant, that’s an indication of problems with Aldr flow. Of course, any of your senses can be used, this is just an example.
Visual scanning would show changes in color and intensity of light; auditory scanning might pick up changes in tone as your body hums to you; feeling-sensation can sense temperature and texture differences, vibrations, and comfort or discomfort; scent works the same as taste, as I described above. Proprioception (the sense of how your body is oriented in space) may tell you that some part of your Hama-body is outside its natural space, is too large or small, or is oriented in the wrong direction.
All of the components of our body are connected in some way with our emotions and thoughts: they are connected physiologically, and energetically, as is studied in Traditional Chinese Medicine, in Indian Ayurveda, in Western Vitalism and the four Humors, etc. Take note of what emotions and thoughts come to you, as you’re scanning each area of your body. These emotions and thoughts, and their connection with specific parts of your Lichama, are very much a necessary part of your Ealdor-yard scanning. If you have shamanic healing skills and experience, you may want to look for intrusions as you scan your Lich in this way, as well.
Exercise 7-2: Healing Aldr-Flow
If you find areas where your Aldr-flow is having difficulties, consider the list of Aldr-Wita tools I mentioned above, and any others you may be familiar with. I will say that I find the theories and techniques of traditional Eastern forms of medicine to be helpful, along with Western forms of energy medicine. I find flower essences (this is not the same as aromatherapy, which is also good), which each target specific meridians, mægenwheels or power-centers, and organs, to be especially helpful. Plus they are completely safe, not very expensive because they’re used in such small doses, and you can make some of them yourself, depending on the plants that grow where you live. But of course, there are more traditionally Heathen ways to enhance Aldr-flow, including Rune-work, diet, physical activity, and bringing your lifestyle more into conformity with natural rhythms of Earth-time, as it is expressed where you live. (Josephine McCarthy’s book on Magical Healing offers many good ideas for this work, including homeopathic and flower essences. Her focus is on healing oneself, as an esoteric practitioner at risk from health impacts of one’s work, rather than on becoming a healer of other people. Cat Heath’s book on Heathen magic likewise has very useful guidelines.
Aldr and Ørlög
The term ørlög or orlay refers to the influence that past deeds and events have on the present, and holds implications for how these two, past and present, influence future events and experiences. As I understand it, our Ørlög or Orlay gives our Aldr and our life-span substance and dimension within the domain of Time, as our Lich gives us substance and dimension in Space. It does this through the property of ‘continuity’, which is the analog in Time of the property of ‘shape’ in Space. Our Lichama gives us our physical shape and holds that shape in space. Our ørlög is the stream of continuity through Time that links us in the present moment with the past, both our personal ørlög and past, and that of kin-lines, culture, species: all the influences that shape our personal and collective ørlög.
This linkage and continuity through time gives us our time-body, which is our Werold: the totality of our life experiences and deeds. The linkage or ‘glue’ that holds our time-body together is ørlög: both the ørlög we lay down with our deeds and choices in this life, and the ørlög of the past that still influences us in the present.
The ørlög from the past and the present lays the foundations for ‘what shall be’ in the future, the tugs, pulls and pushes we feel toward choosing or moving toward one path rather than another. Every choice we make opens up some new choices, and closes down some others; thus our ørlög, working through our Aldr-soul, continually shapes our Werold, our experience of our life-span.
The stream of ørlög-continuity gives our existence shape and meaning, links us with the past and draws us toward the future. Because of ørlög, our deeds and choices are not random, they have context, meaning, consequences, significance. They build upon each other to create the fabric of our Werold, our life in Time. For these reasons, I like to think of the old words Aldar-beornum, Eldi-barn, as meaning ‘children of Time, Time-children.’ This is what we mortals are. We can use this knowledge to pattern our lives purposefully and meaningfully, or we can throw it away as we ‘waste the time’ of our lives.
Exercise 7-3: Being shaped by ørlög
Sit in silence and gather your awareness. You’re an unborn, insubstantial consciousness floating deep within the dim, indistinct waters of the Well of Wyrd. Somewhere in the distance, you hear an eerie chanting: the Norns are singing, gathering together the strands of your Aldr soul, wrapping them around the spindle of yourself. Your lack of substance begins to fill with these strands, as your ørlög is spun by the Norns.
How do these ørlög strands feel? Do they give you shape and substance? A sense of direction, or a sense of challenges? What are the colors of these strands, or what do you sense about them with your other senses? Do they constrict you? Can you see how a band of constriction could be turned into a thread to weave into your tapestry of your life, your Werold? Can constrictions or limitations be transformed into resources, life-experience, wisdom, under the stern benevolence of the rune Need and the gaze of the Norns?
Now move forward in time, to some significant event in your childhood (as long as this is safe for you). Keep that time in your awareness, and non-judgmentally examine the ørlög-strands that played into this event: strands that came from recent or distant past, strands that might be pulling you forward in time, in a certain direction.
You can repeat this exercise as a life-and- ørlög-review, working through your full life up until now. This will take a long time, and shouldn’t be rushed; you can do it over the course of a year or more, and of course it is an ongoing exercise, being aware of ørlög and your Werold for as long as you are alive. Keep a record of your findings in your Daybook; you will find, I believe, that your whole life history and meaning of your life and Werold takes on shape and substance through these exercises.
This is the “Tale of Your Aldr”, and the Weaving of your Werold, that you are examining honestly and with compassion here: learning from it, growing in wisdom, gaining insights into yourself, your choices and their consequences. This activity, extended toward others as well, helps you increase in compassion, acceptance, and understanding toward other people as well as toward yourself. Perhaps most importantly, when you begin to have a true sense of how ørlög has shaped your life in the past, you can begin to make choices about future actions and directions with a fuller awareness of how ørlög works in your own life.
If you feel drawn to serious, in-depth astrology, such as evolutionary or psychological astrology, such knowledge can point you in helpful directions for understanding how ørlög has worked in your life. The planets and signs can, and have been, interpreted by modern Heathens using Heathen symbology. Just as one example, I find that Saturn can well be regarded as Urðr or Wyrd, herself: the ‘Norn of What-Is’, of the past which is shaping the present. Mapping the complex factors of yourself, and perhaps your parents and other close kin as well, through the deeps of astrological time and space is, I have found, very enlightening when we’re working to understand ørlög and wyrd in our lives. Both astrology and Aldr focus on our life in time, the timing of events in our lives, the sequences, causes, consequences and influences of experiences and deeds. Serious, in-depth astrology is indeed a helpful tool for understanding more about our Aldr and Werold.
Weaving a Werold
Our Werold is our lifetime and everything it contains: all our thoughts and deeds, choices and experiences. We may think of everything that has happened with us up until now as ‘the past’, but in fact, it is the Werold we have woven, the garment or soul-skin of our Aldr soul. It is not ‘gone’, but still here with us, transformed for better or for worse by how we deal with all the matters of our life. It is worthwhile to learn to see your Werold as a tapestry of threads. Some of these threads were spun by yourself, others were spun by the Norns, and by people who have influenced you or touched your life significantly, for good or ill. Others are spun by the society and culture we live in, by the history of our kin and culture, and by many other factors, such as genetics. We do not have full control over every one of the threads of ørlög we are handed in this life, but what we can choose is how to pattern those threads into our Aldr-tapestry.
Exercise 7-4: Your Werold as a Work of Art
Can you draw or paint what your tapestry looks like, the colors and patterns that are woven there? Can you embroider or weave something that looks like it? Or use any other form of art? A tapestry is a visual thing, but you might perceive your Werold more like a song, or a piece of orchestral music, or a roughly-textured, complex sculpture, or a garden with flowers and weeds. Try to render your Aldr’s soul-garment, your life woven into Time and Wyrd, into a form of art. If you don’t have the artistic skills for this (though it is worth doing even if you don’t think it’s ‘very good’ and don’t want to show it to anyone), then work in your imagination.
I’ll give an example of my own. I’ve gone through many iterations of this exercise at different times of my life; they’ve all been different. The first time happened in a dream, during a time when I was going through difficult changes in my life. In my dream I held a very beautiful vase made of blown glass, iridescent with rainbow colors, admiring it as I walked. But then I stumbled and dropped the vase, which broke into thousands of colored pieces, many more colors than it had had, before. I was upset at the loss; I started picking up the pieces of glass, and then had the idea of making a mosaic out of them.
I was in a cave, dimly lit by fire or torches, and I started pressing pieces of broken glass into the moist clay wall of the cave. I eventually filled the whole wall with this mosaic, a rich tapestry of dark and bright colors and swirling patterns, lit by flickering firelight. I couldn’t see the whole pattern, some of it was tantalizingly obscure, but I loved this beautiful, expressive mosaic as a whole. The glass vase had been a lovely, small container, shaping my perceived desire for a simple, beautiful life-pattern. But this broke, and what I made out of the pieces turned out to be much larger, grander, more complex and far-reaching, reflecting my real inner life more accurately than the lovely little vase ever did.
I return in my imagination, from time to time, to this cave with my firelit mosaic; each time it seems richer and deeper, extending into darkness on either end, endlessly fascinating even though I could not express in words what it means to me. It is my Aldr who loves this mosaic! I think that the cave where it lies is close to the Well of Wyrd; it is the water from this Well which seeps through and moistens the cave wall, allowing it to accept and hold the pieces of my mosaic. I feel that this is a subtle gift of help from the Norns, supporting my efforts to understand my Aldr, my Werold, and how they relate to the Norns and Wyrd.
Exercise 7-5: Exploring your Aldr’s Time-Body
Enter stillness and awareness of your Aldr and ørlög, as you’ve learned to do through the preceding exercises. Now: can you sense ørlög from the far past, from your kin-line, your culture-line, or from past lives? Can you distinguish these threads from the threads of your personal ørlög in this life? Some strands come from you, some come from others, and from history itself. Can you sense how to integrate these different strands into your life-tapestry, working them now into a new pattern woven by your own will and wisdom? This is another exercise that will take a long time to accomplish, and is ongoing as your life proceeds.
If you wish to do this, and if it feels safe for you, look toward ‘what may be’ through the eyes of ørlög and Skuld, the Norn of ‘What-Should-Be’. Future-ørlög appears to me like ropes, thicker and thinner ropes and threads, tied to different pieces of my already-woven tapestry and leading off in different directions. The thicker the rope, the stronger the pull on my orlay, drawing the whole pattern of my Werold off in that particular direction. Thinner threads, without much ørlög-power behind them, I can perhaps ignore or work around. Heavier ropes indicate a strong force of orlay, bound back in time to the past and present. They must be recognized and accepted for what they are: strong and possibly unchangeable influences on what is coming down the road for me.
This is a very difficult exercise, difficult to perceive and interpret, and even more difficult to change, if we wish to do so. At least, it is so for me. I seem to relate most strongly with Verðandi, the Norn of Becoming, and secondly with Wyrd / Urðr and her work of weaving the past into the present, whereas I feel little connection with Skuld and her domain of ‘what should be’. Perhaps for others, this exercise is less difficult; I don’t know. It is certainly daunting and unsettling, and you may wish to entirely skip the work I describe in this paragraph!
I’ve suggested enough work here to keep you busy for a long time, as is appropriate for the soul which governs our life in time! Time is what Aldr is all about: nourishing and extending our life in time, shaping the events of our life in time, connecting us to the past and what may come in the future. These matters can be difficult to work with, both emotionally and conceptually. It’s best to approach them in small pieces, with a supportive and non-judgmental attitude toward yourself. I’ve written a number of articles that relate to ørlög and wyrd, if you want to explore these matters further, which can be found on my website, and other Heathen authors have as well.
Bookhoard
Heath, Cat. Elves, Witches & Gods: Spinning Old Heathen Magic in the Modern Day. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn, 2021.
McCarthy, Josephine. Magical Healing. Berkeley, CA: Golem Media, 2014.