Winifred Hodge Rose
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Secrets on the wind.
A leaf flutters, floating, drawn
To its own reflection in the Well.
Leaf and image kiss:
Souls & body,
Myth & memory,
Then & now & will-be
Meet at the membrane of water:
The holy kiss of wisdom
In Mimir’s Well.
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And is it worth an eye?
Worth a self, a soul,
To sip this water,
Cool and silky on the tongue,
Trickling down my throat
Into unseen depths?
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What will happen when this yeasty sip
Reaches the great vat of unknown liquids
Pooled in the depths of myself?
Will a heady brew arise,
Lifting and mixing all parts of myself,
Suffusing me
With Mod and Wode and Wisdom
Till I myself am a poem
Brewed by a Master?
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Or will this yeasty sip
Run berserk within me,
Exploding me into fragments
Instead of fermenting me slowly?
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What shall I wager on the chance?
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Would there be a home for my eye
Within the Well?
For my mind, my memory?
What is it like down there?
What will I Know?
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I hear a song I could not sing
Humming from the Well
Like a seashell sings the Sea.
And the water smells like everlastingness:
Rocky and green and echoing through time.
It is full of whispers.
**
I dip my finger in, take one drop,
Dab it on the eye I do not have.
**
Fire and shards and cacophony,
Bursting and breaking,
Shattering, shimmering.
I can’t see.
I’m coming apart.
I’m on fire.
**
I’ve got to quench this burning eye
Or I’ll go mad.
I grope around blindly…..
Water!
With a gasp, I plunge my whole head in.
**
This wasn’t what I expected.
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Can I have my head back?
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This is just the beginning of my tale,
But all my thoughts & words are bubbles now,
Floating like leaves on the wind,
Fermenting.
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Commentary:
Dedicated to Woden and Mimir. I wanted to get an idea of what it felt like to be the two of them as they interacted with the great Well at momentous times in their lives.
Woden as he pledged his eye, in exchange for wisdom, into the keeping of Mimir and his Well.
Mimir: I believe that the apparently senseless execution of Mimir when he was pledged as hostage to the Vanir was in truth a cosmogonic sacrifice, paralleling the sacrifice of Ymir by Wodan, Wiljon and Wihaz (Odin, Vili, Ve). As the Aesir sacrificed Ymir to create the physical world, so the Vanir sacrificed Mimir to form the substance of World-Mind. Mimir’s head, with its ability to think and speak, was magically preserved by a grieving Woden, and placed within Mimir’s own Well. There, Mimir serves as the primal material for what I perceive as World-Mind: the subtle substance within which Thought, Memory, and Inspiration are nurtured and given shape.
Returning to the poem: In this experience-experiment, I tried to blend myself with Woden and with Mimir together, and approach the Well while tuned in to the senses and reactions of all three of us. This poem is what happened!
What happened next, after this experience, was a time of wordless fermentation, which a couple of years later segued into the beginning and continuation of my current Heathen Soul Lore work. I feel that this and all my work is rooted in Mimir’s Well, drawing upon the Memory and Inspiration therein.
Something of mine was sacrificed or transformed during this experience. Knowledge began to flow, and hasn’t stopped since. I don’t claim ‘absolute truth’ or ‘authority’ for this knowledge. It is what it is, for each of us to evaluate on our own terms. For me, this knowledge is filled with love, delight, and spiritual fullness; it is my life’s path, the world of my heart.
Disclosure: The idea about World-Mind is my own, it is not directly based in existing Germanic lore, though it draws from there.
First published in Idunna: A Journal of Northern Tradition, #56, Summer 2003. Commentary: June 2020.