Do You See As I See?

Asatruar are typically familiar with the tale of Odin’s sacrifice on Yggdrasil to obtain the runes,

the mysteries of life and sacred secrets of the cosmos.[1] Proudly they retell the story of All-Father’s quest for wisdom and His nine-day ordeal.[2] Like warriors raising a horn in praise of their chieftain, they brag of Odin, His victory, and His selfless and gracious bestowal of those sacred runes upon His folk for their own progression and enlightenment as well.

Contemporary Asatru Folk, on a much more exoteric level than perhaps ever before, are also beginning to recognize the tale of Odin’s ordeal as not just a tale which gives some linguistic or historical account of how the rune staves came into being; but, personalizing, internalizing and owning the text, they have come to understand the myths as a series of linguistic symbols written within a spiritual literary genre for their reader’s own receipt of the “runes,” the Northern Gnosis, if you will. With the spiritual revolution and reawakening of our Folk, the “self-authorizing” language used by the ancients and the subsequent meaning of the text is being attuned to the European psyche en masse, moving from the esoteric halls of the few to the more common and exoteric hofs of today’s awakening Odinic spiritual-warriors.

Remembering, recognizing, accepting, and acting upon the truth that our lore was not simply written as some childhood fairy tale to be forgotten once one attained to adulthood is the call heard by today’s guardians and protectors of Bifrost. The traditions recorded within our myths were purposefully, intentionally, and with the same attitude of every other piece of spiritual text ever written set to parchment to deliver and reveal some gnosis, some intuitive knowledge (understanding intuition as being that which is taught from within) inherently tied to our Northern mysteries. This is that “yell,” that awakening which has ignited the amber of our soul and sheds new light upon our Way, revealing in the process new avenues of approach to the Holy Powers perhaps never considered before.

Prayer as Bipolar Communication!

On the ninth of each month, I participate with a group of about eighty Asatruar from around the world to make an Odin blot in veneration and honor of All-Father Odin. The event itself is called the Odin World Prayer Day; there is naturally neither a formal liturgy which needs to be read nor a particular ritual which needs to be conducted; and, the intent of our combined efforts is that, as a collective Odinic-consciousness, we might “reach beyond ourselves and touch the Divine.”

Participation in the Odin World Prayer Day is left to the dictates of one’s conscience. The blot may be a short observance or an elaborate ceremony. The work of Stephen McNallen having resonated with me for over a dozen years now, I personally prefer to use the Odin Blot model provided in Appendix Two in his book, Asatru: A Native European Spirituality.[3]

One such day, during my evening reflection, I became aware that, though I had asked for protection during my ritual earlier so that “I may listen to the wisdom within [me] and without [me]”; I blessed my horg (alter) so that my mind could be made “hallowed and whole, given to the good of the Gods and the Folk”; I proclaimed adamantly that I heard Odin “in the rustling leaves of the grove, and in the wild fury of the full-blown tempest….in the cry of the raven, and in the call of the wolf….in the shout of the warrior, and in the words of the skalds”; I had heard nothing.

Veneration to Odin earlier that day having now created a vacuum in need of being filed, and thoughts on the matter returning me in attitude to the very time and place of my earlier activity, placing my once again in that altered state of prayer and communion with Pure-Consciousness, I was able, despite my earlier perception of a missed opportunity, to hear and recognize the intended lesson from my earlier ritual—which was, “With all that you said,….you forgot to listen.” Truly a humbling proclamation by one’s Higher Self toward one claiming to be on the alert for the sound of Heimdall’s Gjallarhorn.

When making the Odin Blot on these particular monthly occasions now, in response to and in the hope of never hearing such an admonishment again, I also insert an element which I have designated my “rite of contemplative prayer.” The intent of this additional rite is to purposely set aside, and thus literally make sacred, a period of conscious listening for the bipolar communication that is intended during periods of prayer and ritual.

The Rite of Contemplative Prayer

What is Contemplative Prayer?

Used in Eastern mysticism (to include some Eastern Orthodox and Christian Contemplative Orders like those of St. Francis of Assis), gnostic instruction, and as a fundamental component in today’s methods and techniques of path-working, whether on an individual or group meditative level, contemplative prayer is a proven and an effective tool for promoting this kind of bipolar communication—which not only transmits petitions to the divine, but which receives messages and answers to those requests from the divine as well.

By its very design contemplative prayer fosters an atmosphere for the practitioner’s meditative, mystical, spiritual, and subjective experience. The practice creates a one-on-one, face-to-face communicative state with the psyche that most people may only experience during their deepest moments of REM and the dream state.

A Basic Rite of Contemplative Prayer  

• Spend some time reading a particular myth, saga or section of such that you wish to develop a deeper understanding of, familiarity with, or mystical experience from.
• Read your selection at least two or three times so that you get a good flow of the story and are able to retell it in your own words;
• Having placed yourself in a meditative state, “watch” the myth or saga with the mind’s eye, allowing the subconscious to fill in those areas not specifically detailed in the story line itself. Remain conscious of the activity enough to keep the details of the tale true to the written lore, while allowing intuitive knowledge, i.e. gnosis, to fill in that which is left by the myth for the Holy Powers (i.e. the deepest consciousness) to express, reveal, and teach.
• Research, Contemplate, Apply, and Record your personal experience.

Potential Hazards of Contemplative Prayer

To satisfy those who would point their fingers and shout UPG from the roof tops at such a practice in reconstructionist Asatru, there are always two specific guidelines followed by those proficiently practicing and propagated by those properly teaching contemplative prayer among Asatru Folk: 1) our Holy Powers are not tyrants, and 2) the Lore is black and white.

Recognizing “Unverified Personal Gnosis”

Bedrock for the Asatru faith is that our Holy Powers never present themselves as tyrants and authoritarians to their people. On a psychological level, one experiencing such a mystical and meditative state as that encountered during periods of contemplative prayer then, when communion with these Holy Powers is expected to be at its most personal and intimate, perhaps even ecstatic, would never expect to be “commanded” to act in any particular manner. Commands and demands sensed by the participant during such exercises are to be recognized then, as has become the term, as “unverified personal gnosis” and should not be given the weight of true gnosis.

Instruction during this time will typically come in the way of a question realized by the participant, and typically with the intent to cause the participant to then realize some eternal (i.e. divine) principle within the nature and character of the cosmos, the participant him- or herself, and subsequently, even of the divine Themselves.

Avoiding “Unverified Personal Gnosis”

The second guideline for an effective rite of contemplative prayer is that the participant remembers—the Lore is black and white. Now for those who are still with me and have not gone into cardiac arrest because of that statement, let me assure you that this has nothing to do with any dogmatic, liturgical, or orthodox enforcement of either our tradition or our mythos. The wording of this admonishment itself, however, is meant to be followed quite literally.

For those who participate in the exercise of contemplative prayer, especially when drawing inspiration from a written myth or saga, the tale that is constructed by the black space of the ink on the page must never be violated. This is the supportive structure of our temples and the skeleton upon which the body of our teachings is given form. Like other religious and spiritual writings however, to think of this black space formed by the ink on the page as all there is to our lore is not only a grave error in the process of one’s spiritual growth, but it is as much an error as one’s flawed observation of the written lore before them, which is physically, as well as mystically, presented through both the mode of the black of the ink on the page as well as the white space which is caused by the absence of any such ink. It is in this white space that one is free to use and allow the imagination and intuition to act as a guide along the road paved by that ink on the page.

My “Odin World Prayer Day,” 3-9-17.

An additional reason for today’s Asatruar taking a different perspective of their written spiritual literature is that contemporary Asatruar are thinking more about their religious beliefs, what that means to them in their daily life, and how that meaning will then influence their lifestyle choices from the management of their households, the education of their children, and even the rendering of decisions related to political issues and national interests. But, can simply altering one’s perspective as described in the single, four-pointed paragraph above really make such a drastic and profound difference in one’s spiritual experiences and everyday lifestyle?

In demonstration of my affirmative answer to the question just presented, and in the way of a short introduction and presentation on the practical application of contemplative prayer, I offer a brief example using the story of Odin’s other sacrifice for the sake of obtaining wisdom, that of the sacrifice of His eye at Mimir’s Well as recorded in The Poetic Edda, Völuspá, stanza 28; and The Prose Edda, Gylfaginning 15.

On this occasion, and always in search of cosmic knowledge, Odin traveled to ask Mimir, guardian of what some believe to be the Well of Urd among the roots of Yggdrasil, for a drink from the well so He too might see with the wisdom that Mimir possessed.[4] Mimir’s requirement for such wisdom, as a gift will always require a gift, was the sacrifice of an eye by Odin. Ultimately determining the value in such a trade, Odin eventually proceeded to gouge out and drop one of his eyes into the very depths of the well he wished to drink from.

After reading the text several times at the designated time in my ritual, and fast forwarding beyond the most de facto interpretations of the myth—that no sacrifice is too great for wisdom and that Odin’s trading of an eye was a literary symbol for the exchanging of one form of vision, or perception, for another (i.e. the mundane and profane for the sacred and spiritual)—there were two vivid instances in the play-back portion of the exercise that stood out for me to investigate and consider further: Odin’s initial response to the anguish and fear of having to gouge out His own eye and the future ramifications that would create, and, the contemplative process in which Odin Himself went through in determining the value of spiritual vision over physical sight. As I thought about these elements of the myth, I began to see that they were not actually two elements needing separate interpretation or consideration, but that they were meant to be seen as complements to each other as an aid in revealing an even deeper truth—that whether dealing with the psychological mechanics of fear or the physical properties of vision, we as humans are creatures of the reality we create for ourselves.

Serendipitous to this particular myth and that of Mimir’s name meaning The Rememberer, the thought of Odin’s having to deal with the fear of going blind merged with His subsequent altered perception of reality as a single piece of instruction came not from some miraculous opening of the sky; but, from a powerful flood of memories which came over me of a motivational speaker which I had heard some months earlier.

Following through on the gift of that particular memory and sharing the personal, individual, and subjective significance of its manifestation; the personal, individual, and subjective result of my use of contemplative prayer; and, my personal, individual, and subjective belief in the effectiveness of such mystical tools and meditative practices, I offer several excerpts from that 2016 lecture by Isaac Lidsky, the lecture which came to the forefront of my thoughts during my time of ritual and prayer:

Going blind taught me to live my life eyes wide open….

I learned that what we see is not universal truth. It is not objective reality. What we [each] see is a unique, personal, virtual reality that is massively constructed by our brain....

Sight is one-third of your brain by volume, and can claim about two-thirds of your brain’s processing resources….

Sight is an illusion….

To create the experience of sight, your brain references your conceptual understanding of the world, other knowledge, your memories, opinions, emotions, mental attention. All of these things, and far more, are linked in your brain to your sight….

So, for example, what you see impacts how you feel, and the way you feel can literally change what you see….

We have arrived at a fundamental contradiction. What you see is a complex mental construction of your own making but you experience it passively as a direct representation of the world around you. You create your own reality and you believe it.

Sight is [however] just one way we shape our reality. We create our own realities in many other ways. Let’s take, fear, as just one example.

Your fears distort your reality. Under the warped logic of fear anything is better than the uncertain. Fear fills the void at all costs, passing off what you dread for what you know, offering up the worst in place of the ambiguous, substituting assumption for reason….

Fear is self-realizing. When you face the greatest need to look outside yourself and think critically, fear beats a retreat deep inside your mind, shrinking and distorting your view, drowning your capacity for critical thought with a flood of disruptive emotions.

When you face a compelling opportunity to take action, fear lulls you into inaction, enticing you to passively watch its prophecies fulfill themselves.

I knew blindness would ruin my life. Blindness was a death sentence for my independence, it was the end of achievement for me. Blindness meant I would live an unremarkable life, small and sad, and most likely alone. I knew it!

This was a fiction born of my fears; but, I believed it. It was a lie; but it was my reality. If I had not confronted the reality of my fears, I would have lived it. I am certain of that!

So, how do you live your life with eyes wide open? It is a leaned discipline. It can be taught. It can be practiced. I’ll summarize very briefly:

• Hold yourself accountable for every moment, every thought, every detail;
• See beyond your fears;
• Recognize your assumptions;
• Harness your internal strength;
• Silence your internal critic;
• Correct your misconceptions about luck and about success;
•  Accept your strengths and your weaknesses—and understand the differences;
• Open your heart to your beautiful blessings.

Your fears, your critics, your heroes, your villains, they are your excuses, rationalizations, shortcuts, justifications, your surrender. They are fiction you perceive as reality. Choose to see through them. Choose to let them go.

You are the creator of your reality. With that empowerment comes complete responsibility.[5]

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[1] The Poetic Edda, Hávamál, stanzas 138-163. 

[2] Use of capital letters when referencing deities (e.g. He/She, His/Her, They/Theirs) stems from a contemporary, 21st century element of respect and veneration, as well as an aid in textural criticisms, and not from any Victorian superstition.

[3] (Nevada City: Runestone Press, 2015), 195-198.

[4] Paul C. Bauschatz, The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture (1982).

[5] “What reality are you creating for yourself?” Ted Talks. Published Oct. 27, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmpu58yv8-g