Heathen Soul Lore #3
Winifred Hodge Rose
Here I’m presenting a story about my understanding of the souls, based on ancient lore. There are different ways that souls can be understood, including the degree to which they are dependent upon any deities. I’m offering a particular perspective, but others can be taken. This is an exploration of how we are formed, how each of us comes into being, the coalescence of all our souls with our body as we live our life in Midgard. I present this in the form of a story or a meditation, and invite you to picture it and follow it in your imagination, as well as your intellect.
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There is Fire and there is Ice. They form the poles of Ginnungagap, the Gap of Magical Potential, the great void that holds all potential Being within itself. The polarities of heat and cold meet in the middle and form a vast space of roiling mist and steam: this is Mist-World or Niflheim. Here, all-that-might-be exists as wisps and shifting forms and energies, ever flowing and reshaping. Here is where Ahma arises, also called Ond and Athom: the sacred breath of Spirit that flows through all existence.
Through this space of Ginnungagap currents of enormous power flow, generated by the primal polarities, and in the center they meet and swirl into a gigantic, churning fountain of energy called Hvergelmir, the Roaring Cauldron. Up and out it bursts, perpetually re-creating space-time by its existence and motion. This is the source of all the forces operating in the Worlds, flowing forth in the shape of the Elivagar, the mighty rivers of energy that feed the Worlds and form the turbulent boundaries between them.
As Hvergelmir’s energy-fountain billows up, it begins its first stage of condensation, forming the World of Hel, the Womb of Souls. Hel is not the dumping ground of the dead. Rather, it is here that the potentialities of Mist-World, all the swirling Might-Be’s, take the first steps toward becoming beings in their own right.
These beings, the Saiwalo souls, arise in Hel. They are formed, as everything is, from the Ahma-Mist, the Ond-Spirit-Breath, arising from Mist-Home. The currents of Hvergelmir and the mighty Elivagar, the cosmic fountain and rivers of power, stir these mists. The roots of the World-Tree stabilize them, Mimir’s Well feeds them, the primal Powers of the Worlds flow through them. And thus, our Saiwalo souls are stirred into being.
The Saiwalos are the first souls to begin the coalescence into individual being-ness. To further this process, each Saiwalo forms and feeds a phantom, a spiritual shape called a Dwimor, which reaches up from Hel into the world of Midgard. Dwimor is the soul-image of the person-to-be, flowing out from the Saiwalo soul into Midgard. In Midgard, the Dwimor-image remains connected to Saiwalo, channeling flows of energy and imagery between Hel and Midgard. Dwimor serves as a spindle or a magnet, collecting all our other souls around it. Our Saiwalo with its Dwimor is the center of gravity that holds all our souls together during our life in Midgard. At the end of our physical life, our Dwimor departs Midgard as a phantom, and returns to the Saiwalo soul who generated it.
What is it that calls this Dwimor-image into being from Saiwalo? What urge does Saiwalo feel, that moves it to form a Dwimor and send it forth into Midgard? A sacred spark is lit, a spiritual fire ignites, and its beauty and power draw the Dwimor forth from its Saiwalo-soul in Hel, pulling it up into Midgard. This sacred spark is our Ferah soul, our Fjor, ignited when egg and sperm meet in the act of conceiving a physical body, a Lich.
Ferah is the power of lightning and thunder, the power of earth and mountains, of sky and storm. It flows through Thor and his Mother Earth, and into humans, animals, trees, all the beings of Nature. As the lightning-strike of Ferah-life begins in the womb, the complex flows of Midgard-energy acting through the Dwimor cause each Ferah to become a unique individual, imprinted by the Dwimor-image and formed from the life-power of Earth and Sky. Thus Ferah-soul and Saiwalo-soul meet together, bridging the sacred energies between Midgard, the Home of Life, and Hel, the Womb of Souls.
The imprint of our soul-image that our Dwimor shares with Ferah-soul now flashes forth like lightning, giving forth an echo that coalesces into our Hama-soul, which links to the genetic imprint of the newly-conceived being. This is the soul which shapes our physical body, our Lich, with its ability to take action, to speak and behave as humans do, and take on human appearance. Odin’s brother gave the template for the human Hama soul to Ask and Embla. That template is passed down through our genetic lines to the present day by the power of the Hama. As our Hama-soul shapes our physical body, our Lich, the two of them blend together and become our Lich-Hama: our living, ensouled physical body. Hama gives us all the essential tools to function as humans in Midgard, including speech and ability to interact in social groups.
As we grow within our mother’s womb, there are now three Life-souls at work to shape this growth. Our Dwimor, sent forth from Saiwalo, offers an image of what we can become: an image which will grow and change with us during our full lifetime, influenced by all our souls and our surroundings. Our Hama shapes our physical body and the many abilities our body gives us, including speech and brain-power. Ferah provides the energy for growth and change: the thunder that starts our infant heart beating, the lightning of bioelectric activity that runs through our nerves and all our cellular interactions, triggering growth and change. All the sensations and perceptions of our Lich, our body, are felt and perceived through our Ferah, which permeates and fills our Lich as a subtle energy-form.
Now our living body, our Lich-Hama, is finishing its formation in the womb, and we approach the time of our birth. The Norns and Frau Holle draw forth from their Well our Aldr soul, and shape this soul to guide our life through the dimensions of Time and Wyrd. To this soul is attached our Orlog, the threads from the past with all their potentials and pitfalls. Aldr guides the timing of physical changes in our body, and the timing of wyrd-filled events in our lives, through its connection with the Norns. Aldr is also the Nourisher and Healer: a close-to-physical soul-being who funnels subtle energy into our Lichama, giving us vigor and health, and governing the span of our life.
Now the wyrded moment comes, guided by the Holy Ones and by the stars, when we leave our mother’s womb and enter Midgard as a being in our own right. At this momentous instant, we draw in our first breath, and with this breath our Ghost rides in and roots itself within us. Ghost is shaped out of the Ond or Ahma, the Spirit-Mist that hovers timelessly over Ginnungagap. The Holy Ones attending our birth grasp a portion of Ahma or Ond, and wrap it in a soul-skin to give it shape, cohesion, personhood, and the spirit-likeness of our Lich.
This Ond wrapped in soul-skin is our Ghost: our own personal Spirit or Ahma, enlivened by the power-filled spirit-mist arising from Ginnungagap. Ghost is like a pod wrapped in a membrane, floating in the timeless fields of Ahma over Ginnungagap. Ghost pulsates within this field of Ond, drawing Ond into and out of its soul-skin, and causes our Lichama, our body, to do the same in Midgard. This is the process of breathing: our Ghost breathes Ond, our Lich-Hama breathes air. They synchronize together, filling us with Life and Spirit. As our Ghost settles into our soul-household, it attunes to the shape of our Dwimor-phantom. Thus, we have two phantom-souls who, in the afterlife or during disembodied visions, will bear the appearance of our Midgard-self: our Ghost and our Dwimor.
So here we have the tally of our six Life-Souls:
~ Hel-Dwelling Saiwalo with its Dwimor,
~ Ferah the Fire of Life,
~ Hama the Shaper,
~ Aldr the Nourisher, Time-Keeper, and Bearer of Orlog,
~ The sacred breath of Ahma or Ond,
~ and our Ghost, our personal Spirit, which wraps our Ahma within it.
Now, there are two other souls, Daemon souls rooted in Midgard, who have been hovering over, and influencing, our conception, gestation and birth. Hugr’s nature is rooted in Desire, Wish, Longing. It is open to love, and springs from deep wells of the human past. Hugr is an ancestral soul who reincarnates in the body to experience Midgard life, again and again. This is how Hugr grows mightily in knowledge, wisdom, power, subtlety.
The Hugr Souls of our ancestors, and the Hugr-soul wishing to incarnate into our new body, spark desire and love in our parents at the time of our conception. The powerful desire of the hovering Hugr to reincarnate draws egg and sperm into full union.
As the spark of life begins, a Mod-soul, a nature-spirit or elemental who has evolved along with humans, brings its own power to bear. Mod’s powers are Strength, Will, and Determination, carried to a very high level. This hovering Mod-soul, seeking a physical body in Midgard, fills the new spark of life with strength and will to live and thrive, to grow to fulfill its full potential.
Mod and Hugr, these powerful Midgard souls, help us, the new person, to set deep roots into Midgard, rooting solidly into human life with all its complexity and richness. At first these Daemon souls are only loosely associated with our infant Lich-Hama. Some of their traits are strong in small children: tempers and moods, willfulness and determination, basic traits of character: Mod and Hugr begin by attaching themselves to us in these ways. Sefa also begins to grow within us at this time: our sense of self, the perceptiveness this gives us regarding how our self relates to others, and our desire and need for relationship throughout our life.
As time goes on and we grow and mature, Hugr and Mod gradually knit themselves more tightly with our Life-souls as a well-functioning group, our ‘soular system’ or our Hiwscipe, as I like to call it in Anglo-Saxon: our soul-household. Hugr and Mod bring intelligence and social skills, courage and strength of character, wisdom and guidance. Sefa, our sense of self and how we relate to others, grows along with this. These grow stronger and deeper through our experience of life. Thus these souls are able to express their characters, their desires, their will, their moods and tempers, their thoughts and actions, through this new person and into the rich and challenging world of Midgard. Sefa helps to moderate the sometimes-selfish or thoughtless powers of Mod through a soul-part blended between them: our Modsefa. Hugr’s warding powers protect the tender Sefa, the relationship-soul, from being abused or drained.
As we grow into childhood, Ferah is an influential soul, igniting in us the love of nature that most children have, when given the opportunity. Playing with animals, watching the clouds, climbing trees, splashing in water and mud, hunting for rocks and bugs: through these activities Ferah awakens our awareness of its deep roots in natural life. We become aware that we are a member of the Feorh-cynn, the kindred of all living beings. Ferah brings with it a natural sense of piety, of connection with Holy Ones both great and small, and when well-nurtured it gives us, as children, the innocent and lovely sense of connection with Holiness. Ferah has a strong sense of the natural laws that govern fruitful interactions between humans and Deities, humans and Nature. Thus, the Old Saxons referred to a wise and devout person as feraht.
Aldr nourishes our souls and our life, and triggers the many stages of growth and change as we navigate childhood, adolescence, and throughout adulthood. It gives us our sense of time passing, of wyrd and orlog and the meaning these hold for our life. And it gives us the ability to see and understand our life as a whole: our life as a soul-garment that we weave, day by day, throughout our lives. Aldr is so important to human life that, again and again in the old writings, human beings are called aldr-beornum and eldi-barn: the children of Aldr, Time-Children, mortal beings.
As small children, we often sense the presence of our Ahma and Ghost, with their connection to the timeless source of divine inspiration and power, though we have no way to express this understanding in words. Ahma is a soul that’s too big to fit into the span of a child, or even an adult, until we stretch and grow ourselves to our utmost. As we mature, Ahma-power is best expressed through moments of inspiration, creativity of all kinds, and in brilliance of intellect.
As we grow and our soular-system or Hiwscipe (our soul-household) consolidates and integrates, we become more and more able to access and express all our souls. We ourselves link all the Worlds together through our souls and body, our thoughts and deeds, our care for ourselves, for each other, and for this beautiful world of Midgard.
Food for Thought and Discussion
I Can you recognize any of these souls within yourself? Do you have a sense of how they have acted in your life, how they have shaped you as a person? Have you observed these souls in other people you know well?
II If we come to better understand and work with our own souls, what skills, talents and abilities would come more powerfully to life within us?
III How can this understanding of our souls lead us toward ‘living a better life,’ ‘becoming a better person’ (however we define this)? Would we interact more effectively with others, with Nature and natural entities? How might our relationship with the deities be affected, including with Gods or Goddesses whom up to now we haven’t gotten to know very well?
IV How might our understanding of non-physical (trans-physical) life be changed? Non-physical life includes, among other things, Before-life, After-life, and spiritual and esoteric practices during life.
V What is the “Self” in the context of this theory of souls?
VI What does it mean, that different religions and philosophies have different ideas about the number and nature of the souls?
This article was first published on this website, June 2020. Updated May 2021.