Images; Polarity of Saiwalo and Ahma; Precipitation
Images; Polarity of Saiwalo and Ahma; Precipitation
Winifred Hodge Rose
Why Alchemy?
Before we proceed to the main topics, I want to explain my reason for using alchemy and ecology as a way of describing and understanding Hel, Saiwalo and Dwimor. I think that there are various different conceptual contexts that allow us to explore and understand each of our various souls, and by using these contexts, we can deepen our understanding in ways that would not be available if we used a different context. The best context for Ahma and Ghost is ‘spiritual’ and ‘spirit-mind’. For Ferah, Aldr and Mod, the context is ‘metaphysical energies and patterns of Nature / Spirits / Deities / Wyrd’. For Hama, it is the ‘etheric body’. For Hugr, Mod, Hama, Ferah, Sefa, we have the ‘personal’ context: personality, character, will, abilities, ego, emotions, relationships, etc. And for Aldr we have the context of Time and our life in time.
Saiwalo and Dwimor are very different, and don’t fit well into any of these contexts. They are ‘spiritual’ sort of by default, in the sense that they are not physical, but they don’t have the connotations, activities and meanings that we, in the modern Western world, usually associate with ‘spirituality.’ The ‘metaphysical energies and patterns of Nature, etc.’ are associated with Midgard and with the other realms of action of the upper-worlds Deities and Spirits, and these are not Saiwalo’s domain or concern. Nor are Saiwalo and Dwimor associated with the day to day activities, connections and concerns of the body, ego, personality, and so forth. ‘Time’ as it is experienced in Midgard is irrelevant to Saiwalo. These other souls (except for Ahma as primal, unchanging Spirit) have motives, will, desires, interests and connections that orient and direct them in Midgard space-time during life.
Saiwalo exists in a different kind of conceptual space, not closely associated with any of the above. It has no personality in and of itself, at least as we understand it in Midgard, though its Dwimor will carry the image or reflection of the person’s personality and physical appearance after death. This Dwimor-image is not true personality and personhood; it lies only at the level of surface appearance, and has no depth or substance to it. However, Saiwalo definitely has functions and processes associated with it, which I perceive as being more like metaphysical analogs of ecological systems and alchemical processes, than like ‘persons’ in any sense that we understand it in Midgard. Alchemy is a good conceptual context for Saiwalo and Hel, because it allows room for metaphysical and speculative exploration, as well as providing a foundation for viewing Hel and its dwellers in ecological terms, as we shall explore further.
Review
In The Alchemy of Hel, Parts I and II, I wrote about my perspective on the coming-into-being of the world of Hel, and of the Hel-Dwellers: Saiwalos (souls) and their Dwimors (phantom-images projected by the Saiwalos). I discussed how the Dwimor is formed, and how it moves into the Midgard-realm and provides the alchemical matrix which attracts and holds together our other souls, along with the life-energies they draw in, during our life in Midgard. Dwimor also brings with it the unique image of our physical appearance and personal impression, which it imprints into our Hama-soul to guide Hama’s task of shaping our Lichama (living body) with its La (life-energy), Laeti (voice and behavior), and Litr (appearance and charisma). (See The Shape of Being Human: The Hama Soul, and The Awakening of the Souls.) I followed that with a description of the breaking-up of the soul-bonds and Dwimor’s return to its Saiwalo in Hel, the Hidden Land, bearing with it a load of mysterious ‘treasure.’ This treasure is Dwimor’s hoard of images, collected during life in Midgard.
Dwimor-images
In my previous articles about the Saiwalo, I’ve made reference to its ability to generate images, foremost among them being the Dwimor, the phantom-projection of Saiwalo. I showed at length in my article Hel-Dweller how images of the dead, as opposed to dead bodies themselves, play a great role in the lore and folklore of Scandinavian lands. The continental Germanic-language speaking countries have many, many tales about souls of the dead who appear in phantom form, images of who they were in life. Lore from many other lands and cultures speak of the same thing: encounters with beings who were humans, and look like who they once were, but they are not dead bodies. These encounters sometimes appear to occur in Midgard, other times they seem to happen in afterlife domains or otherworldly settings. This ability of the Saiwalo to create a Dwimor, a phantom image, is, I believe, an indicator of its facility with generating images overall, including the images that come to us in dreams and daydreams.
One of the influences on my ideas about Saiwalo, Dwimor and images comes from ancient Greek usage of the words psyche and eidolon. ‘Psyche’ is the Greek word that the Gothic bishop Wulfila translated as ‘saiwala’, as he rendered parts of the Bible from Greek into Gothic. ‘Eidolon’ in ancient Greek meant, among other things, the spirit-image of a person, living or dead. This is also the root of our word ‘idol’, the image of a deity or other object of veneration. To give an example of ancient Greek usage of these two words, here is part of the story about the Greek hero Achilles, mourning for his slain friend and lover, Patroklos. (Iliad 23, 65-109.)
In grief and exhaustion after battle, Achilles fell asleep on the shore. The psyche of Patroklos came to him then, ‘in all things like himself.’ He told Achilles that the psyche-eidolons of the dead prevented him from faring over the river of death to join them, leaving him alone and restless, with no place to go. The reason he was not accepted into the blessed lands was because of the lack of funeral rites, which had not yet been performed because of battle. When Achilles tried to embrace his friend, Patroklos’ psyche dissipated like smoke, yet later, ‘psyche and eidolon’ returned, and continued to appear to Achilles all night long, “like Patroklos’ very self”, giving Achilles instructions about the funeral as well as wailing and weeping about his lot.
Here we see the juxtaposition of ‘soul’ with ‘image or phantom’; in our terms: Saiwalo with Dwimor. When living Achilles tried to embrace the psyche, it vanished like smoke, which is one of the meanings of Dwimor’s word-root (see Alchemy of Hel Part II). Yet later it / they returned, the soul along with its shape or phantom.
There’s another intriguing mention of the eidolon in the Odyssey (Book 11, ll. 690 ff). The hero Odysseus has entered Hades to seek knowledge from the dead, and encounters many ‘shades’ there. He meets the eidolon of Herakles, but strangely it is only his eidolon, his image. The poem states that Herakles ‘himself’ dwells on Mt. Olympos with the other deities, wed to a daughter of Zeus. This is a perplexing ‘image’ for us to contemplate! It’s hard to envision a situation where the image of the person is in Hades / Hel, while the person ‘himself’ is basically in ‘heaven’. These kinds of metaphysical riddles, like the Zen koans, can spark some intriguing insights when we work with them meditatively over time.
The Poles of Saiwalo and Ahma
Though there is no need for me to adhere to the ancient Greek concepts, I find them intriguing for two reasons. One is that there is a good deal of similarity between some of the archaic (Homeric period) concepts of souls, and the Germanic concepts, as I understand them, and the Greek writings came centuries before the existence of Christianity and the changes it brought. The second is that my own soul-explorations over the years have steadily led me to the perception that Saiwalo is ‘more’ and ‘other’ than the fleeting image of the dead, the eidolon or Dwimor, that sometimes appears to the living. Saiwalo is deeper, stronger, surging with the fundamental, upwelling cosmic forces that arise from Hvergelmir and the Elivagar.
Saiwalo is a very deep-level being, not directly associated with Midgard itself, but only through its Dwimor or image. It is deeply rooted and settled in Hel, in my perception of it. I see it as the opposite pole to Ahma, our ‘high’, transcendent Spirit-soul. Our entire being is anchored between these two non-earthly poles: Ahma in ‘high’ transcendence, Saiwalo in ‘deep’ transcendence. (The use of these directions, high and deep, is metaphorical, based on how these things feel or seem to us.) We are beings wrapped around the spindle formed by the connection between these two souls and their domains.
Each of these souls has a mediator who serves as a transformer of their natures and powers, buffering between the otherworldly domains of Ahma and Saiwalo on each end, and Midgard / living humans in the middle. Ghost and Dwimor can each be seen as shapes, hamas, or vehicles of their respective root-souls. Ghost is formed of a membrane or pod which encloses and shapes our portion of Ahma within it, while Dwimor is a condensation and projection of a portion of Saiwalo’s essence into Midgard. Both Ghost and Dwimor can sometimes be seen as phantoms in Midgard, or during otherworldly experiences by living humans, yet neither of them fully expresses the nature of their transcendent originators.
Inspiration / wode, formed of Air and Fire, comes from Ahma, through our Ghost and into our Ghost-mind (gastgemynd plus gastgehygd). Images, formed of Water, come from Saiwalo through our Dwimor and into our deep-mind, our unconscious and subconscious levels. As they blend within living humans and interact with our other souls in Midgard, the results of their Earthing can be all over the map of human experience and endeavor. Great art, new inventions, new ways of doing and perceiving can result from this blending of inspiration and imagery. So can great suffering and destruction, brought about by negative images fired by inspiration that is more of a wode-conflagration than a vitalizing, holy Fire of purified wode.
On a personal level it is the same: the inspiration-imagery blend within us, resulting from all the experiences, attitudes and strivings of our life, can result in anything: from the suffering of PTSD, to the misfires of relationships based on misunderstandings and stereotypes run amok, to the quiet satisfactions of a well-balanced life, to the high reaches of spirit-infused creativity and spiritual activity.
The Alchemy of Images
I’ll summarize these points by repeating a paragraph from my article, Hel-Dweller So much of what we perceive, think, feel, and act upon is rooted in and motivated by images in our minds. And yet, my sense of our Saiwalo is that it is the generation of images itself, and not the resulting thoughts, emotions, and actions, that forms Saiwalo’s primary activity. Consistent with ancient understandings of this soul, Saiwalo does not play a direct, active role in our Midgard life and our personality. Its role in Midgard is passive: generating and absorbing images according to its own inner processes, which are rooted in Hel. Our other souls in Midgard, our mind and body, all actively pick up and respond to those images, and in turn generate material that our Saiwalo uses to modify its images and create new ones.
Now let’s look at this process alchemically. I described in The Alchemy of Hel Part II how Dwimor is formed from Saiwalo through a process of coagulation and condensation of ‘salt’, in preparation for its projection into the Midgard-plane. It enters Midgard as a salt-being, and there forms the alchemical matrix that holds together our other souls and body, and the various energies that they draw into our soul-body complex. But these are not the only things embedded in Dwimor’s matrix: Dwimor also collects the images that constantly swirl within us and around us, the images that shape our own perceptions and experiences of the world around us, and shape our reactions to the same.
Here is an important point: Dwimor, and Saiwalo, do not have the abilities of evaluation and judgement. Saiwalo generates images, Dwimor absorbs and transmits images, but neither of them choose the images for these activities. Images float up from Hel like bubbles, entering into our Midgard minds through our Dwimor. Everyone’s Saiwalos are filtering these images up into Midgard through their Dwimors, and everyone’s soular-systems are processing and using these images, passing them around and picking them up from one another, and as all of this happens, the images coalesce, transmute, evolve and multiply. We exist in a sea of images, far more so than in earlier times due to phenomena like photography, cinema, the internet, advertising, the media, the world-wide spread of telecommunications, news, songs, art, books, speeches, messages, education, etc. The images we derive and share from these sources have a great impact on us, and through our actions, they impact our physical and non-physical worlds.
All of the imagery that we are exposed to coheres in our Dwimor, with its function of providing a grasping, salty matrix to hold all the aspects of our living-being together. Dwimor can’t sort out healthy from unhealthy images, productive versus damaging or worthless images, inspiring versus time-and-energy wasting images. Such sorting and choosing is not within its abilities; it just holds onto everything it encounters. We have to rely on our other souls with the capacity for judgement and choice, if we want to keep some inventory-control of images going on within us: souls like Hugr, Mod, Ferah, Sefa and Ghost.
Our own health and well-being in Midgard are maximized when our souls capable of judgement take on the responsibility of sorting through and winnowing the images that our Dwimor collects throughout every day and night. The use of critical thinking, and many types of spiritual and mental-health practices are designed to do this, as well as treatments for more severe situations of imagery-run-amok, such as schizophrenia, PTSD, hallucinations and paranoia.
Precipitation
So, however well or poorly our other souls perform these processes of image-monitoring, winnowing, cultivating and combining, the time comes when our Midgard life is over and our souls go their various ways. Dwimor heads off to its Saiwalo in Hel, bearing the hoard of imagery that it has collected over a lifetime. I wrote in my previous article how Dwimor leaves the body through the process of sublimation, transforming from a metaphysically ‘solid’ state as a salt-being, into a vaporous state as a disembodied phantom, as it begins its journey from Midgard back to Hel. As it proceeds on its journey, approaching its salt-water Saiwalo origin, Dwimor gradually becomes more liquid in nature. We can see an image of this, when envisioning physical earth: air / vapor can penetrate a certain distance into the ground, but not very far. Water / liquid is able to penetrate earth much more deeply. As Dwimor sinks into metaphysical / elemental Earth, heading toward the underworld of Hel, it coalesces from an airy to a watery state.
When Dwimor returns to its Saiwalo, it undergoes another alchemical process: that of precipitation. Precipitation occurs when some kind of stimulus causes a dissolved substance to coalesce into larger particles and separate out into a sediment, sinking down as a solid at the bottom of the liquid. Dwimor bears its particles of imagery ‘in solution’, dissolved within its salty-watery self, as it heads toward Saiwalo. When it reaches Saiwalo, its hoard of image-particles is precipitated out into Saiwalo.
There are many things that can stimulate or catalyze precipitation, including various chemicals, heating or cooling, or vibration. In my perception, I sense that Saiwalo catalyzes precipitation from its Dwimor by means of singing, that is, by vibration. I mentioned in The Soul and the Sea that I perceive Saiwalos’ singing as being similar to whale-song: long, deep, sonorous echoes under the sea, heavy on vibration. Saiwalo sings the images from Dwimor into itself, by means of precipitation out of Dwimor. There is also a cooling effect as Dwimor sinks from the hotter, active plane of Midgard life, into the cooler, quieter plane of Hel, which promotes precipitation as well.
What does Saiwalo do with these precipitated images? Here we begin to move into the ecology of Hel, the subject of The Alchemy of Hel, Part IV.
Note: If you’d like some further reading about the process of maintaining a healthy and clear ‘imaginarium’, I find R. J. Stewart’s book, The Spirit Cord, to be most inspiring and helpful, especially Chapter 5 on purifying the imagination. I will note that his approach is only one among many different ways one can do this. Another approach is discussed by John Michael Greer in this recent article: https://www.ecosophia.net/the-care-of-the-mind/
This article was first published on this webpage, February 2021.