Further reflections on the family tree

So I climbed down off the tree thinking everything was done and dusted but once you’ve gone through the mythscape it will continue to give you insights going forward. This particular one came from a dream in which I was working harmoniously with my little brother to create something together. Sounds pretty normal only I have never really had that kind of dream before. In all my dreams about my brother I have been trying to control the situation. This is the task I was handed as the elder sibling in my family.

It strikes me that the one way I did not look at the Norse gods was as a family. They are a family with all the traumas most families have, there is Loki the little brother competing with siblings for attention. He can’t get the love or respect he wants easily do he resorts to manipulation and guile. The fawn response of a traumatized child. Then we have Thor equally perplexed by as to why the all-father sometimes seems to prefer Loki for his adventures and he approaches most solutions with his hammer, the fight response. The whole family makes Loki the scapegoat for all their ire. Odin is the absent parent more often than not.

I grew up in the remnants of an authoritarian family system, where the father’s needs and feelings had first priority. My father was probably more approachable than his father but the subtext was still the same. Boys needs before girls and parents needs before children’s. My response was very Loki like but then I in tern was leader or perhaps bully to my younger siblings. The patterns we see in childhood are the ones we will likely see again in our adult relationships unless we become aware enough to break them. My parents were trying to break theirs, trying to keep the violence out of their home that they grew up with but the emotional patterns where still there. What I see now is people who were trying to love each other but did not really know how. The mystery for me is to discover what love really is and how it works.

I learned a lot about family systems psychology from John Bradshaw and one of the influences he always mentioned was Alice Miller. Among her theories was that the child rearing practices in the German family of those times created fertile ground for the German state in WWII. The theory being that if you grew up with a totalitarian regime at home then why would you not accept that as the natural order out in the world.

The Norse myths do something interesting in posing Ragnarok not as the ultimate end but as a rebirth point for a repeating cycle. So it is with generations of children and parents each trying to correct the mistakes of their ancestors and learn new things along the way. I sometimes think of this as a pendulum one generation pulls the pendulum one way and then the next pushes it the other and so we are continually trying to find balance and evolution. One wonders what Odin has learned since those early days.

Myths work on many levels and where the idea of a repeating apocalypse came from is an interesting one. One of the more striking theories that I have come across is put forward by Alexandra Witze and points towards volcanic activity in early Iceland as a source for the myths catastrophic imagery. If you think of Loki not just as a god of fire but a god of volcanic fire then he makes a lot more sense. A god who is bound under the earth slowly building in furious pressure. Volcanoes also repeat their eruptions sometimes with years of dormancy in between. I have dealt mostly with the gods as representatives of human conundrums society and individuals face but it should also be remembered that they have this titanic aspect.

I am not sure how to sum all of this up. All I can say is that diving into the world of myth is very illuminating as an experience. You learn about culture and people and yourself. You could hang on the tree for nine days or nine years or indeed ninety years and still not learn all there is to learn. If you have not looked at the stories of your ancestors perhaps go back and see what is there waiting for you.

Fourth night on the tree

I seem to have reached the nadir of this journey. I am spending this time with Freya mostly. It’s one of those sad days where all that seems appropriate is crying and listening to sad music. Most of my reflections are around relationships that didn’t happen which is most of them. Some of this may be about disability, other people’s reactions to mine and my feeling of wanting to spare other people grief.

I’ve long been aware that I do not want to bring children into the world as it is and that if they came through me there is a very high chance that they would carry the same disorders I do. I’ve often felt the possibility of a relationship melt in front of it and thought well at least that person won’t have to face the realities I do.

Am I misguided in my thinking? My brother has the same diagnosis but chose to have children, what gave him the optimism to do that. There is of course more to it. There is something about the vulnerability of it all. Having observed my parents and their tendencies towards codependency I’ve looked at potential partners with a skeptical eye. I’ve asked myself “what are you like when you’re angry and what are you going to ask of me?”

The most beautiful metaphor I’ve been able to think of for relationship is dance. People moving in time, closer and then further away and back, sometimes supporting one another but taking turns doing that. I think my Dad tricked my mother (and me) sometimes demanding more support than was reasonable and yet he was ill.

Whenever I ask the gods what my future holds they are vague almost as if they know I’d mess it up if I knew the truth of it. I read the runes and I get Gebo the gift, Wunjo joy and Fehu wealth. All of them should invite optimism and reassurance. I want these things to become true and yet my expectations are not set that way. I have been singing the runes as well, it’s not exactly the same as the ancient practice and yet it acknowledges the runes not just as letters but as spells. To sing them is to invite them and to invite the possibility of what they represent. Magic is an act of imagination that’s why we reach for it.

I think I need to do more ritual around making peace with the past and the people in it. All the ones who have hurt me and all the ones I have hurt.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between my quest and Odin’s he has to come close to death and through it mortality in order to experience or see into all the realms. I am already mortal and death is a certainty for me. While I am fascinated by the world beyond what I actually seek is an appreciation of life. I seek knowledge of how best to spend the time I have with the people that I love.

First night on the tree.

So I’ve had my first day and night on the windy tree. It would be perhaps special if I could have sequestered myself away from the world to do this but life goes on and you can do these kinds of quests mixed in with ordinary life. I am not demanding anything near as rigorous of myself as Odin. The key is to hold the intention of this exercise for nine days and nights. My first act was to take a cordlike string and tie it on, this is to remind me that I am on the tree. Last night I turned my sleeping arrangements around so that I am essentially hanging upside down (metaphorically). I thought about whether there should be some fasting aspect to this but decided against it as this is mostly an exercise in personal reflection. I want to be more mindfully present during this time and I want to actively engage in remembering and writing.

Last night was quite an auspicious start as Fool’s coven a branch of the Wildwood met. We are a collection of artists and every full moon we gather to produce art via engaging with our gods and spirits and then we put it away to let it sit and on the new moon we meet and share it. Last night we worked with the horned owl, one of the four guardians of the Wildwood and I worked with Odin as well. The owl for us holds the eastern quarter and is associated with sunrise, new beginnings, wisdom, air and communication. The owl described me as “a little mouse come to hang by my tail from his home”.

After this session I put on American God’s one of who’s principal characters, Mr Wednesday, is Odin in disguise. I have had a few encounters with the traditional myths in my childhood and through Neil Gaiman’s book on Norse Mythology more recently but I am determined to absorb more of the stories. This past week I have also been enjoying the final season of the Ragnarök on Netflix. Like many I have in the past mostly been drawn to the figure of Loki, who doesn’t love a rascal unless of course they are ensnared in that rascal’s trouble making. I have always been reluctant to claim Loki as one of my gods preferring to say I am Loki adjacent. That is to say I like trickster gods, I enjoy Hermes in particular who is perhaps the more socially adaptive, working as he does in invention, communication and commerce. The Romans with there love of syncretizing everything with their own deities linked Odin to Mercury who is in turn linked to Hermes.

My first encounter with trickster stories was the spider god Anansi from the Ashanti people of Ghana. There is a delight and humour in many of these stories. I have wondered why these gods in particular are so important to people and for me it’s that they are great teachers and survivalists, they bring ingenuity in their problem solving. Odin himself is not above trickery but he is also committed to the social good and he gets there by gaining wisdom through a painful situation. All tricksters want to take the meat from the trap without getting caught, to escape without consequence or cost. Odin does something different he deliberately places himself in the jaws of the trap and he learns from it. This is what I am doing turning in to face my own demons so that I might learn how to escape my own traps.