concepts in heathenry

The Oneness of the myths and mystics and ancient wisdom is _not_ the same as monotheism.
This we must realise. The core of spirituality is Reality.
The Oneness is Reality hidden by the mystics.
Monotheism adds mystic to their dogmas, and uses mystic as a garb, a camouflage, over the warfare.
(The core a monotheistic religion is to become a world empire.)

sons of Óðinn (consciousness),
Váli (the hawk of morning) Baldur, Höður, Víðarr;
How do we revenge? Váli knows: We kill darkness by bringing in the light.
As simple as that

First Step to Understanding the Profound Beauty of Heathenry
keys to the secret code of edda of the north
A gentle kiss of innocent love, and our Sleeping Beauty within wakes up.

About concepts in heathenry and in edda;
what do I mean by "a dictionary to explain the concepts"?

Edda is the sacred texts of the North. The secret language of edda poems has to be discovered if we are going to understand the depth of them.
audio-video, the abyss of the symbolic language of edda

I would like to interpret briefly some terms in edda, and reveal the secret language of myths, the veiled language of edda, the hidden wisdom of the ancient Norse, our ancestors. But edda goes for the whole of Europe and our culture and theosophy as a beacon that will never be put out. It conveys Truth, and Truth can never die.

I pick terms at random here for sake of interest and curiosity, as this (following) you probably never came across before;
and we should also look at the dictionary for concepts in heathenry:

* Loki is half god and half eoten. He is the double nature of humans. If we read the stories of Loki and his trial/error methods as if they were about us, men, we would not laugh too heatedly.
Loki's dilemmas, his crude mistakes, his putting things right again to free himself, his often mean means to save his skin, are all about us. But these stories are written (about us) in a way that we do laugh. We do not realise why we are so absorbed in them and why we tell them over and over again, but the reason for that is that we are looking into ourselves.
Sometimes Loki (we, our human trouble-making nature) flies in a borrowed feather-guise of divine origin! We are half eotens, half gods, and we do fly sometimes.

We know Loki to be our (human) "experiments", mostly silly, a bunch of errors, but still leading to a solution, and definitely not a standstill and definitely not the devotion to dogma and written stagnated clausulae. It is living life even if we are not all too perfect.

* The Brisingamen, the jewel of goddess Freyja, is humankind. Freyja, the perpetual renewal of life, the unbounded universal love. She guards us well. We are her gem, sparkling talisman, that she keeps in a safe place. The only trouble is Loki (id est us, men).

* Shaman is not universally understood. The word shaman is originally from sramana in Sanskrit, meaning to make effort to attain to. The profound meaning of shaman is greatly misunderstood now-a-days, as being traditional cult-music and dancing only, or, at the best, some funny magic. But it is, in its very essence, an effort to gain access to the Great All-prevasive Spirit, reaching samadhi, emerging into the origin of all things -- which is the universal consciousness and is the origin of human consciousness also.

That field of life is within human thoughts, so we have to leave thoughts in the world where they belong. This concept needs explanation as we have been brainwashed and we no longer understand the underlying sphere of life, the ginnungagap.
In rúnatal (runa-) of Hávamál (Hava-mawl) we are taught this. But we do not understand.
(Read Óðsmál (Ods mal), Óðinn (Odinn) on the vinga-tree or vindga-, chatter 29.)

* Gungnir is vibrations, the creation on the most subtle level, -- weapon of consciousness, Óðinn. Vibrations become matter.

* Æsir, Óðinn Vili Véi, create, while jötnar rid us of useless attempts, recycle the worldly particles.

* The concepts nature belief and nature worship, actually can not be used any more, as belief and worship have changed their meanings here in Europe during the past 1-2000 years.
Worship of God is flattering for and obeying. That has nothing to do with culturing the inner gods and goddesses as heathen men do.
Belief used to be in Old English leof, love, lef, leef, lif, that means beloved. But now belief is the opposite of understanding, now meaning to confess certain dogma to be the only right thing, belonging to a theocratic God, refuse to think with an open mind.
This different uses of concepts need to be pointed out and explained.
Trú (tru), like in ásatrú (asatru), does not mean belief or confessing belief. Actually the opposite. It means to trust, find the trust within and all around. Trust in providence. And to be true, true to Truth that is within us.
Confessions and institutions and dogmas are not to be found anywhere in heathenry, and heathen men are not credulous (that is: they do not belief blindly). We have no prophets, no bans or musts. Responsibility only, and the will to understand "the unknown".

* It is impossible to look at man as superior to nature, or that he should dominate Mother Earth. Her virgin birth, her giving birth to all things in the material world of men, is just a reason for heathen men´s thankful devotion to her and appreciation of the bounty from Her. She is Fjörgyn (Fjoergyn), the mother of Þór (Thor) the powerful human will, our might and main. And man is on his way to perfection, to Valhöll (Valhoell), as every other creature, trying to evolve.
Sometimes, even, an intelligent animal is more enviable than a man that is more of an ape.

* Þór (Thor) can be explained as the endeavour to cross the river of life -- on foot!!. (Symbol of might and main, self-reliance, self-responsibility.) He is also electricity in the material world. The symbols thunders and lightings are used for the power of an efficient man and of earthly phenomena. Just as we talk about a fiery temperament, we can use electrified atmosphere. Metaphor we use all the time, naturally, without even paying attention to it.
We should understand it in our edda as well, effortlessly.

Þór (Thor) destroys ignorance and past aeons. We know, that change from something to something else creates time (the concept of time) in us. We see a was is has become and explain it with time. That is because we do not see the ginnungagap that is always change-less. We see only the material show with our worldly eyes.
- note:
  þurs is past evolution;
  tröll is ignorance;
  jötnar are sweeping up, enthropy, decay of matter;
  (is is thin to translate all as giants; -- symbolic language is delicate and precise in icelandic, and in edda)
  Þór is will and endurance;
  Mjöllnir a device to get rid of ignorance;
  Freyja the perpetual dynamism of creative power;
  Skaði, a daughter of a late þurs (Þjazi) is our will to evolve to highest peaks;
  etc etc etc
Change is, in terms of Mjöllnir (Mjollnir), making possible new creations. Making space, rid ourselves of useless stuff.
Therefore we take change as a chance.
Never should we fight or regret change as that is a prerequisite for further chances and for evolution.
We know Loki to be our (human) "experiments", mostly silly, a bunch of errors, but still leading to a solution, and definitely not a standstill and definitely not the devotion to dogma and written stagnated clausulae. It is living life even if we are not all too perfect. We have to take changes, change, evolve and have the guts to be humans. Not to cling to institutions. No. Live our own life.
We should not try to live a life of another.

Above all we should never use dogma (Books, written so-called "law") to defend and preserve our egoistic and egocentric "safeness", secure habits and gains and possessions.
We should not blind our inner righteousness and use a blind belief as an excuse for our fear of changes to come. Allow the cycles to flow, and flow along with them, but consciously.
Through the feeling for the stream of life (blood of the universe) we come to feel the heartbeat of the creation.

* Miðgarðsormur (Midgardsormur), the great serpent in all myths of the ancient world is for us also equator. We know that the position of equator has changed. That can be read in the ancient myths.

Every bit of the knowledge of our ancient ancestors can be explained in perfect accordance with modern science and our now-a-days knowledge of all phenomena in the world and their origin, the Unified Field.
The wise forefathers knew even more. They warn against and tell us about the future. Only we are to stagnated and blind to see.

The flat-earth-period was that of ignorance, a great step backwards. The wisdom of our ancient ancestors has been treated unfairly by the flat-earth people.
We are in some fields still in the flat earth period. Even intelligent men are trapped in indoctrination of theocratic concepts. Some scholars are teaching dark-middle-ages' stuff to their young students.

* Our reverent ancestors even knew about the ozone layer and the importance of it for life on earth (Svalinn). Our generation had to find out the hard way.

* Thor's wife Sif has golden hair. This is to the common mind the golden harvest, the corn field in autumn in the breeze. Going deeper, gold in our myths is the dawn of enlightenment, the harvest of a life of progress and evolutionary deeds and doings.

* Þórs (Thor's) hammer, Mjöllnir (or Mjölnir, Mjoellnir, the miller, the grinder), is a swastika, a sign of access to inner power. Mjöllnir (Mjoellnir) destroys all obstacles and hindrances for us on the path to spiritual growth. Hammer (Icelandic: hamar) comes from asman in Sanskrit.
Mjöllnir (Mjoellnir) or Mjölnir (Mjoelnir) forms a cycle as it always returns to Þór (Thor; i.e the sender, or us) like a boomerang. Everything in edda indicates cycles. Evolution goes forth, but still there are cycles. An upwards-phase and a retarding phase. The goal is ahead but the means are the cycles in life.
We can not loose our hammer, with which we progress.

Without dissolution of matter there will be no progress, no recreation. Inertness is stagnation. Without destroying ignorance there will be no opening for truth. Evolution goes forward, but in cycles. Crushing is symbolic for getting rid of the past and ignorance, making place for further evolution.
The swastika means: good luck!, in bocca al lupo!

* We must understand the meaning of idolatry. It is very hard to explain that a stone, or a grove, or a tree, or a carving, or a rune, is not worshipped as such, but is a cue to the Great Universal Spirit, ginnungagap, that is the ultimate wealth and treasure.

The divine gap ginnunga is the common source of the stone and of our mind as well. By our mind, through our mind and from there even inner where the mind can not go, we find also the origin of the stone, the tree, everything. The divine ginnungagap.
The legs of Sleipnir are the layers of worldly spheres to pass on the inwards journey, and he stops where the ninth takes over. Nine is the unknown.

The word "worship" can actually not be used in this context. We do not "worship" ginnungagap in the way that elohim (the jealous God) wants to be worshipped and the christians use the word. Our gods and goddesses are from ginnungagap as much as we are, and we cultivate them rather than worshipping and obeying them. Obeying here only means: to listen to one's own consciousness and one's own feeling for righteousness; obeying the quest of helping evolution of mankind.

Óðinn, bronse-statue, Skáney, Danmörk, víkingaöld

* Idolatry is much misunderstood. The real, inner meaning of the concept is very interesting once we get to understand.

Let's imagine a statue of Jesus. Imagine that we are looking at an old catholic lady worshipping it. Then let's forget that Jesus is used for an idol in the catholic way (i.e. a man (saint) is worshipped), and we shall let the old lady become a pure human soul that sees in the Jesus-concept only love and eternal life. Her sign of a cross on her chest is heathen too: a swastika. Not a real execution tool at all apart from killing ignorance (sin) in us.

And now we see how heathen concepts (in this case striving, but still dismissing effort, as a way to find divinity, shaman) is "used" by the church, only, the original meaning is distorted. Let's see the death and rise of Jesus as a purified state of consciousness, and the cross as a symbol to destroy ignorance and gone aeons, and again we have the heathen cycles, recognised, even if distorted for military purposes by the church.

A catholic man might pray to Holy Mary, and get drifted away from his eager prayer, loose his thoughts, - not going from that thought of praying to Mary to another thought about something else just as worldly, but -- drift into a realm of no thoughts and get filled with light and bliss, fully awake though. There he emerges into his own divinity, - even if the church does not approve on that (finding god in man's belly, or contemplating one's own navel, as they name it). That man is just Óðinn (Odin) hanging on the tree of life for nine nights (no real time at all).

A man from another sect of Christianism, Lutherianism f.ex., might have the same experience with a Jesus-idol, the only idol allowed there, or a God-image that he trusts in and really finds in himself and everywhere. Even if Luther was an insane devil-hater and a mad woman-hater, the name of a sect (that some man might belong to (here Martin Luther the fanatic brute)), the name of a sect can not prevent that man from finding his pure heathen divinity within. "Labels" are stupidity anyway. There is only one mankind on earth.

But a priest reciting in the church some protocols, as it is his paid job to preach on Sunday mornings, is not necessarily finding goddess Sun within on that Sunday. His smile after mass is a popularity-trick, not bliss. The priest has the job to baptise babies into the sect, and to hold the grown-up sheep in the fence --- away from the big bad wolf out there. The big bad wolf most likely is heathenry, anyway. In bocca al lupo, anyway, is saluting good luck in the future and fate.

Of course all men, whatever labels they belong to, have goddess Sun in here somewhere.

A truck-driver on the Autobahn might, -- without loosing his alertness and not at all drowsing into sleep, -- without any obvious spark or reason, get filled with light and lightness and bliss, where just everything becomes so beautiful, even the traffic. And the irritating sunshine becomes only light of life, and the purr of his diesel engine becomes a Þór (Thor), r r r r r, the reið (reid) of rune characters, the rho of Greek (which Socrates also calls the sound of movement). The blissful truck-driver hears it with his worldly ear, but sounds resonate in his psyche as a power of life, and he feels refreshed, and is not weary at all.

A man claiming by an announcement to be a heathen (i am a pagan i am a pagan i am a pagan), hating the church because it stole and abused all the heathen concepts in its imperialistic propaganda, hating the Jews because Moses invented a bellicose God for them, a God that promised the Jews land and riches, and that they (the Jews) would one day make all nations their slaves as a revenge for the enslavery of heathen p.o.w.-flocks (prisoners of wars) of different non-Egyptian tribes by the Farao of pre-Moses´s Egypt, - that man is not a fair "heathen". Just an angry man, a racist and a nazi, another revenger in his way. Labels have nothing to do with the pure essence of shaman of heathenry.

The opposite to this hate is when a heathen man goes alone into nature -- or, staying at home -- enters into his own inner infinite sky (cosmic consciousness) to find the greatest peace of mind, his divine origin, inner bliss, goddess Eir that is our divine powerful tranquillity and peace of mind -- the best of healers, ease, the opposite of dis-ease.
No need for a label on it. No need for a thought or a name for it.

Even an atheïst in a prison cell can live bliss all of a sudden with no obvious elve (channel). He would not be able to call it an elve as that is to him superstition. But goddess Sun is in him whatever he prefers to call her or call her not. And the shining elve-treasure is this inner wealth. It belongs to every being. And an atheist is well off, actually, in his way, as he funks God-institutions. He is free if he does not cling to the label: I am an atheist and refuse.....(whatever). He is free if he just lets go.

We can not label people's inner divinity by names of religions, because the term religion is just another worldly label, that has nothing, what-so-ever, to do with divinity, apart from all this talking about it. It is too often a misleading talk, anyway. Not truth at all.

we are ginnungagap;   we are consciousness, Óðinn, Buddh.

On top of that we should realise: Truth is within all human thoughts, anyway, and thought does not reach there, as thought is worldly and the origin is Truth Itself, in norse myths ginnungagap. A gap. Void of material bits.

So why all this talking?
To start intellectually to understand. Then to leave thought, not for an inertness, but for the powerful divine quietness.

Our old catholic lady in the church might find her love to Jesus to become elves or channels to the greatest wealth of pure love, universal love, which is the greatest of treasures. Anyway, the world of elves (according to edda) is ancient and Freyr received it as a gift when he was a baby getting his first tooth.
Another woman by our old lady's side in the church might perform learned rituals and facade gestures only, not going any deeper than that automatic recitation or learned copied behaviour.

And, so, a heathen that believes in elves and some material treasure in the elve-cliffs might be stuck in belief. Belief does not give us anything great. It is a play for the mind. Belief is only worldly thoughts. Stagnated, stiff, dead, motionless, binding fetters are not precious for life.
But trust does give us something great and should mean self-reliance, trust in nature, -- and our responsibility. Finding providence to be our very selves gives us wisdom.
So does seeing the wealth to be inner love.
If belief moves mountains, we are using the might and main of Þór (Thor) in us to gain the support of nature for our will and endeavour for evolutionary deeds.

Do not wish others ill. That will only come to you.
Do not provoke negativity in Urður (Urdur) Verðandi (Verdandi) and Skuld (Debt).
Use the power for good deeds and altruistic accomplishments. That, only, will pay off.

I want to point out here that the teachings of Jesus are in accordance with heathen concepts. Much might be taken from Óðinn (Odinn), and the sayings of Jesus are in accordance with the eternal tradition -- and thus contradicting the Old Testament.
The use of Jesus as a caesar has confused us. And that confusion was, of course, the very purpose from the very beginning!!
The tricks are: Power and love as one and the same thing;
demand for obedience by threat and gain (hell and heaven),
and the demand: be good, -- all in one parcel, and no choice (confess belief or die).
This confusion has held us by a firm grip like sheep in a fence, belonging to the shepherd and his whimsical needs. That is the life of good sheep.

Jesus was very very heathen in his teachings. We do not know if he really learned -- (during the age of 12 to 30) -- from the ancient rishis of India and in the Himalayas, or if the church-makers in Rome used some European heathenry in his story.
I take an example:
Óðinn (Odinn) advised: Hvar er þú (thu) böl (boel) kannt, kveð (kved) þú (thu) þig (thig) bölvi (boelvi) at sem væri (vaeri) það (thad) þinn (thinn) andskoti. Wherever you find (come across) evil and misfortune, deal with it as if it was your own enemy. This, and a lot of other heathen ethics and morals, might have been taken and used on the new Roman caesar, the soter Jesus. (He was not asked, you know. The Jews had removed him long before. And Jesus was definitely not a christian.

But obvious mix-up has occurred when someone in Skandinavia calls thunders and lightings "the wrath of Jesus". Þór (Thor) is electricity. Rain is a life-giver. Þór (Thor) is the farmer's brother and friend and might and main. Jesus is not angry, but he might cry because of all the "kill in the name of Jesus Christ, amen". At least I cry in my heart because of the crimes committed by the church of Europe.
But thunders and lightings and rain I love. They are blessings from nature.

Actually we do not know who copied whom in all the European stuff, the phrases of wisdom found all over the place. The cunning strategy of the clever Romans was to use all the beautiful concepts of the people, concepts known to be good and graceful, and claim those terms to be christianity as Jesus taught them, -- and to apply them when fitting.

The Bible, too, is full of ancient myths that the heathen people knew, but in the Bible they are used to embellish the bellicose God and the strict demand for obedience to the rules of the theocracy. (Originally by Moses or he would have disobedient men (males) killed on the spot.)
Jesus was actually teaching the Jews heathenry and the real essence of divinity. Therefore they removed him. Jesus was a threat to the Jewish society. The Romans learned how to use the powerful tool theocracy. And they, the Roman empire christian church, could use Jesus to turn all the prevailing heathen concepts onto. Then, as a next step, they had to erase heathenry. Heathenry is individuality, a concept that spoils an obedient army. An army must be uniform, a pliable device.
To reinforce the grip, theocracy uses the carrot (heaven) and the stick (hell). That is a threat after death as well in life, and the Faraos used that clever grip. We can not brake away by dying. Luxation is no solution as hell awaits those who do not fight for the theocratic institution in its holy wars in which some men are stuck. Oppression is called God's holy law.

The real purpose of these God-institutions is to get people's money and labour and obedience for further warfare and expansion of power. Little lies, where missionary is called philanthropy, get many useful volunteers for the imperialism. Power is called love, and that must be believed.

* The abyss of the edda goes for the Greek and Roman ancient gods and goddesses as well as the norse ones. Once the meaning has been regained and explained we can apply it and uproot misinterpretations. This is the dormant treasure of Europe. The Sleeping Beauty. We give it a gentle kiss of innocent love, and _we_ wake up!

We are talking here about the rediscovery and real understanding of a great ancient cult, the eternal tradition.
Dionysus and Baccus are symbols for inner divinity. They have deliberately been misinterpreted. The wine is the stream of life-energy. Myths use symbols. Blood is symbol for life flowing. It does not symbol bloody wars, killing and slaying.
Orgy and shaman are acts of divine endeavour to gain the inner Truth on the tree of life -- as Óðinn (Odinn, actually we ourselves) on vingameiður (-meidur, tree of life) when he hnýsist niður (nysist nidur, is "spying down", curiously doing research in his own consciousness) and falls again there from. (Listen to rúnatal (runatal) Hávamála (of Havamal); reread chatter 29 in Óðsmál (Odsmal)).

This wisdom was understood in ancient Europe. When Oedipus blinded and not wearing king's robes, says: "Now I see", and enters the vast nothingness, he means heathen spirituality. Perhaps the audience of the ancient days knew, even if we do not. The depth is lost to us to-day's Europeans. This is the dubious "achievement" of the church.

As wine and blood are symbolic for life-force and life-flow, so is mjöður (mjodur) and honey-brew of edda. Alföður (alfodur, Óðinn (Odinn)) lives on wine alone, is not a one-eyed warrior drinking to get intoxicated from alcohol as crude men do.

* Skáldamjöður (skalda-mjoedhur, mead of poetry) is the human understanding, akin to Eve's apple's effect. It is not the ability to make a little verse or a poetic story that goes with a little lovely tune. It is understanding the abyss of life, the part of it that our worldly eyes do not see, the part we know to be there but are not quite sure about, and _skald_ understands, and has the ability to convey the wisdom to his fellow men.

(for fun: Adam's former wife, Lillith (I think that is her name) is the serpent. She was not obedient to the patriarchy. She had a free will, and therefore they junked her. It is a delightful message to us that actually she (that serpent) became the cause of human evolution and the free discriminating human will. The obedient Eve and the poor obedient Adam would still be on the animal stage if it was not for that free female power (Lillith?).)

How Óðinn (Odinn) got the mead of poetry (human understanding) from Gunnlöð (Gunnloed).

Here we shall hear the story in brief. An amusing myth this one is, telling us how to become an evolved human being, but we need a key to the secret language of the edda to understand the message, i.e. to interpret it.
Listen:
The thurs-maid Gunnlöð (gunn- loedh (she who lures (laðar (ladar)) to battle of life, or charms to battle, (gunnur = battle (batter?)), is a daughter of an eoten. Gunnlöð (Gunnloed, she who urges us to fight in life) loves Óðinn (Odin, the free human intelligence, unbounded consciousness, human intellect).
Gunnlöð (Gannloedh) gives away the mead of human understanding (the skáldamjöður, skalda-mjoedhur, mead of skalds) because of her love and by her love. She embraces the human spirit but can not hold him forever.
Gunnlöð (Gunn-loedh) lives in the hard-to-get-into berg/cliff Hnitbjörg (Hnit-bjoerg, -- which is inside us humans as we should see it).
The óðinn (our own will to gain wisdom) really has hard time in getting into that place. A rodent gnaws a hole, and we (Óðinn (Odinn)) have to become a serpent or a worm to slip inside.

On the other hand, we panicky fly when fleeing back to the holy place in us named Ásgarður (Asa-garden). After all, if we have the mead we do fly.
(Suttungur is past evolutionary stages trying to hold us back.)
Before having the mead, we had to become or perform that rat and worm thing.

* Æsir (Aesir), the Asa, (singular ás (as)) as _men_ are thought to have immigrated bringing with them the delicate and profound wisdom of veda to Europe. Edda is by many considered to be the same word as veda originally.
Æsir as _gods_ form the word ásatrú (asatru), tru here meaning true, having trust to, not to be confused with Icelandic trú (tru) meaning belief in the modern meaning of confession to rules of institutions or sectarianism.
Probably it was a priest made this word (asatru). It is recently taken into use, anyway. -- But heathenry has, actually, nothing to do with belief. -- A priest, on the other hand, must have a label, or he will not be able to talk about the concept. How can he oppose something "unknown", that is only a "sidr", has "no label", -- and no two seem to agree on any fixed dogma. This is like fighting fathoms and ghost in a gloomy room. And his paid job was to destroy this that can not be fathomed. Jesus Christ! We must put labels on these heathen, or they will never be exterminated.

* Another race of gods are the wise Vanir. The stem of the word also found in Venus. The planet Venus is Freyja. To Vanir belong Freyja herself, Freyr the peaceful bounty-yielding year-god, and Njörður (Njordur) the sea-god.

Vanir might be rays, not hostages; -- but the Icelandic word gísl (gisl) means a hostage (plural: gíslar (gislar)), and the Icelandic word geisli means a ray (plural: geislar; just as the proper name Gísli (Gisli) can mean either a ray or a hostage).
Vanir are said to have been sent as hostages to Æsir (Aesir), but as Vanir are a more refined state of being in our human awareness, the text should go: Vanir are sent to Æsir (aesir) as rays.

Njörður (Njordur) is perhaps former goddess Nerthus that brought life from the sea (Afrodite; afros = sea-foam).

* The sea, Ægir, in myths is a symbol for The Great Waters of Life, the Abyss, the Great All-pervasive Unbounded origin of all in creation.

* The sky is symbolic for man's consciousness as a part of universal consciousness. This is understood by the non-profane mind only.

* Jötnar (joetnar; singular jötunn (joetunn)) are corrosive and negative powers, eotens, the colossal eaters. They are a part of every cycle.
Creations, i.e. creative powers in the universe (gods and goddesses), are the positive and creative part, but decomposing factors are the eotens (eaters; negativity, rust etc.). Gods and eotens go together in pairs.

That is the very fun of living. The perpetual cycles. The perpetual creation. We do take part. It is a lovely game of life, of which we are responsible personally as we _are_ a part of it.

* Eir is easy to understand (-- the symbol is easily comprehended).
She is one of the norse goddesses and the symbol is easily understood. Eir means peace of mind, tranquillity within. She is a healer, said to be the best of doctors.
The modern man understands that a stress-less life is better for the heart and can actually save us from cancer. If we keep no worries, find only Eir within, we are promoting mental and physical health in our mind and body. And Eir can cure dis-ease as she is ease.

* Yule is for the common blind man (that uses his worldly eyes only) just the birth of the worldly light of life, winter solstice, and promise of a spring to come, the feast of Freyr the god who woos to Gerður (Gerdur) the fair thurs-maid (edda poem Skírnismál (Skirnismal)), and the other edda poem of man's blind ignorance (Höður (Hoedur) the blind brother) killing the sun-god Baldur.
But, to the non-profane mind, Skírnir (Skirnir) is an avatar that reminds the arrogant materialism (Gerður Gymisdóttir (Gerdur Gymi's daughter)) of the inner wealth, the rising Sun of human evolution and higher states of consciousness, the divine Freyr inside us.

is the julebukk the sign of the zodiac?

This ancient feast, yule-tide, was used by the papal theocracy as the birth of a saviour, light of life.
Explaining theocracy will perhaps fall outside the scope of this work, but I shall have to tell you what happened to heathenry!!:. We are too peaceful. We do not see that theocracy can have anything to do with the fate and life of heathenry. So why should we bother to defend Truth? It can not be killed anyway. Christians love yule of course as much as we do. So why make fuss? The joy of yule belongs to all men.

Theocracy is when the concept god is used to rule people. A clever strategic tool invented for the urge of dominance.

Our New Year:
Freyr is our god of a peaceful and prosperous year. The material-life part of it and the spirit within.
Freyr sends his avatar Skírnir (Skirnir) to tell Gerður (Gerdur) the thurs-maiden that the worldly is not enough. There is something more to life: The spiritual part.

The visible message is renewal of light, new vegetation, material growth, peace on earth, nature's christmas (darkness mass), heathen nature's yule, the marriage of Freyr and Gerður (Gerdur).

The hidden message is for every human being to find and admit divinity within himself and see its meaning to life, -- or actually to find "the discovery of divinity within" to be a most important discovery for the very purpose of life -- and to unite in The Oneness.

This spiritual meaning is more difficult to teach and explain than heathenry's nature's christmas, winter solstice, nature's yule. Especially to christians, as gods have been taken from them, and a labelled God put up there somewhere (as a whimsical judge up there somewhere), not to be reached without some worldly institution, (that so-called church of Jesus), as a media.

And when nature's phenomena are used in myths to explain the unseen underlying truth, some people see there only nature-belief, confused by a bundle of worldly funny gods and goddesses, and confused by deliberate misinterpretations during the last centuries.

The cycles, yule, wheel, hjól (hjol), jól (jol), are a change that are chances.
Change is a prerequisite for evolution.

Please find more in the sub page "info on yule" (more amusing information on heathen yule) in this page for Óðsmál (Odsmal):
http://www.mmedia.is/odsmal
button: Skirnismál, The Heathen Yule,
and then a sub page : info on yule (at the top of "Skírnismál" (Skirnismal) script for the yule play).

A heathen man is absolutely free. Any kind of musts and bans and missions and sects have no place within the concept heathenry. Self-reliance and honesty are taught. Love of Mother Earth as a life-giver is taught.
There is total responsibility, total freedom, total absence of thrusting ideas upon others.
Religious wars is a concept unimaginable to the heathen man. Prophets and doctrines are not to be found here.

The ancient symbols are found all over:

* The mistletoe is from a yule-poem in edda.
* Eleven golden apples (still to be found as a yule decoration) are in Skírnismál (Skirnis-mal) in edda. They are immortality, ambrosia, the ever-young, ever creative, part within us.
* The christmas tree, the lights, the cake, the gifts, etc. are heathen symbols.
* Santa Claus is heathen. Riding in the air at yule-tide is heathen. That is what Óðinn (Odinn; we ourselves as the free universal spirit) does to chase away wights of cold and darkness at jól (jol). Everything is so meaningful, and also such joy in our ancient cult. Therefore the church used it -- in order not to loose popularity.
!!!Now-a-days some Lutheran Protestant sects are refusing all the Xmas fuss as being silly and distracting catholic pomp and heathen left-over, not relevant in Jesus's birthday party(!), which should be without material glamour.

Anyway Jesus was not born at this time of the year;   Jesus is a mythical man, only telling us to evolve and cruxify the bestial nature in us and become godly --   as we are in essence.
And the year zero is for sure a wrong calculation. Calender is a device, you know.

But as truth has no place in the church of literalists, then the main thing is that the christians "own" our calender. To rule by Anno Domini, CE, was the only purpose, and we obey that. Right or wrong? No big deal. It works. It is all over in the western world now.

* Easter is a northern goddess of spring. She has nothing to do with slaughter and suffering, but is the power of the human spirit and the will to see more than the worldly eyes do. She is spring in the air, and then the dawn of enlightenment in us.

* Óðinn (Odin) the main god of the heathens is cosmic consciousness and human consciousness as well. The human mind is free and has unbounded possibilities.

* Óðinn (Odinn) sees with one eye the world as we do see it with worldly eyes, and he sees the inner invisible field of life too and all the past. Nobody knows if he (and actually we humans too) has the third eye, intuition. We still have it as a gland inside our scull, not in use now, but perhaps for potential later reuse. We still have a great task at hand, we know, to rediscover our infinite potentials.

Óðinn (Odinn) let one eye to the well of Mímir (Mimir), the all-remembering one, as a pledge for wisdom. We should too. Perhaps that will give us insight, intuition, in addition to our worldly sight.

* Ymir is a thurs from which the world is made. His name means the sounding one, and he is OM, and the sound of creation, perpetual worldly creation.
Ymir is said to be related to yama, therefore a twin, or a bisexual being. And some etymologists deny the interpretation "the sounding one" (from the verb ymja) as being a popular understanding only. Ymir begets with one leg by the other, which supports this twin and Yama interpretation and similarity.
We have in Norse mythology many Sanskrit words, adjusted to Norse: Óðinn (Odinn), Frigg, Huginn, Muninn, edda, Ymir, Vani etc. etc.
Ymir is the first worldly division into female and male powers, has the first trace of female and male concept, and he is the sounding world, matter, energy, material world. Ymir is the created world. And perpetual creation is Ymir. Ginnungagap creates perpetually, punah punah (again and again), by curving within Its own intelligence, curving back upon Its own nature (not worldly Nature, just Its potential), by the inter-reaction of Óðinn (Odinn), Vili and Véi (Vei) within Itself.
Modern science explains this too, as you can read in Óðsmál (Odsmal):
The underlying Oneness, Unity, the Unified Field of modern science (physics/quantum), is all silence, unbounded potentials only for the creative forces. It can not be measured by our instruments, as no worldly substance is there.
This is norse ginnungagap.
Ginn is something very sacred, and has a second meaning: that which "lures", or even "tricks", our human understanding. It is beyond our human capacity, as human understanding is worldly and depends on our worldly conceptions. Only when we "see" we understand the difference between ginnungagap and ymir.
Gap ginnunga is the Unbounded Space. We find It in inter-solar systems and inter planetary fields, we find It inside every atom, and quark, and It is the very substance of our human intelligence and sentiments as well. Everywhere. And is Reality, whereas Ymir is the mirage of beautiful music only. Real to our worldly conception, but comes and goes, intangible like the wind.

* Theocracy and heathenry are extreme opposites in every way. Be very sure not to confuse religion (warfare) to religion (spirituality). This is a luring trap (man-made device that calls Imperialism a religion).
Christianity and heathenry have nothing in common. Some "things" look the same. But that is the cleverness of the Roman's (church's) perfect strategy.

Heathen gods and goddesses can not, in any way, be worshipped in the way that flattering and surrendering to an outside power is called worship. Worship (in the modern meaning of the concept) is humiliation, not a thinkable condition for our ancient ancestors.
Surrender to the gods does not mean to give up or to flatter, but to cultivate the innocent devotion to our divine origin, or the ginnungagap, the origin of all phenomena, earth, gods, humans, all of nature.
Gods and goddesses are Laws of Nature. And gods and goddesses are psychological inner trends and powers inside us. By no means can we worship ourselves, but self-esteem and trust in evolution is inherent in the human psyche.

Man's spirit is always free, even if our human ("no longer animal-") nature (Loki) is admitted to be a nuisance as a drag (some little back-wards steps occasionally). But for our evolution stagnation is a bad state. We are Loki, the half-divine, half-worldly mixture. We are the brothers Baldur the bright and Höður (Hodur) the blind warrior. That makes life difficult, complicated, -- and a wonderful game.

* The ancient word guþ (guth) is neuter plural, implying gods and goddesses as natural powers and human endeavour. The Roman papal empire used it as masculine singular, a He-God, that is reachable through the institution church only, but the guþ (guð, gudh) is the concept (plural, neutre) for the ancient Norse gods and goddesses that lead to and emerge from the Oneness, ginnungagap.

* Ragnarök (ragna-roek, the fate of the gods) is telling us about the cycles and aeons in creation. Truth will always reemerge. However dark the age of ignorance and how dark the dark ages, there will always come a new cycle. (Read Völuspá (Voelu-spa) of edda.)

* Man is all-responsible for himself. He and he alone is his own guide. Thou lead thyself, is the main core of the philosophy of the ancient Norse, the heathens.

* If anyone believes that a true heathen is a savage brute barbarian, he has been listening to the imprinting of lies. Believing it only shows the ignorance of belief. We better not believe. Belief means stagnation and narrow-mindedness.

* Heathen (heiðinn (heidinn)) means: a man of the heath, of the moor. (Deutsch (German): eine/die Heide (fem.), English: a/the moor; und ein/der Heide (mask.): a/the heathen (man).)
Heiður (heidur, an adj.) means: clear as the cloudless sky (symbol for elevated individual consciousness, and cosmic consciousness).
Heiður (heidur, a noun) is reputation. Good reputation. That is a heathen man's greatest wealth.

Honesty and responsibility thrive in the vast. There is joy in vastness. Vastness is within us, and we shall find its unbounded possibilities in here.

* Elves are rivers or channels or ways inside man's psyche, and they live as folklore among us, even if not understood properly.
The cliff in which they live is a hidden place in us, that we can have access to. It contains unworldly wealth and happiness - in here - in store for us. Christians use that one: knock on the door and it will be opened up.

The Lutheran bishop in Iceland mocks heathens for believing in elves and trolls instead of believing in the Semitic God. That is because the bishop gets his pay (wages) for withholding the church and debasing vor forni siður (sidur), our ancient cult, and he does not want to understand, and does not want his sheep to understand. His job is to withhold the institution for which he works by all means, even lies, debasing, and ignorance.

* The principle of karma is inherent in the three norns/witches of fate, Urður (Urdur, what is done and what was, past), Verðandi (Verdandi; the process or the becoming, the now), and Skuld (Debt, coming later). No doomsday, no Hell, no Devil, no dead-end or "game over", but rebirths on the way towards perfection.
Boundless beauty of the human potentials.

* Víkingar (vik-ingar), the Vikings, were living in a period of time when the real essence of the cult of the Norse was degenerating, and their riches had been plundered and their farms confiscated by the church. They did keep some of the high moral code and were considered talented and reliable people. Aggressiveness is not the real core of heathenry. Víkingar (vikings) were not pirates. They were an organised navy, trying to "rob back" (regain) the wealth that the populus cristianus (monks and priests) had plundered form them.

The vikings did not rob the common people that had been force-baptised anyway; they robbed only the monasteries and the cloisters where the stolen wealth accumulated.
Note: vik-ings, not vi-kings; vik is an inlet, a little fjord, a creek (kriki); their flat-bottomed swift light wooden ships could easily land on sandy- or gravel-beaches; and their handling and making of viking ships was beautiful skill and craftsmanship.

Fjallkonan, and the raven

* Some claim that even animals were not killed by heathens originally; actually claim heathens to have been vegetarians, doing no harm to anything in nature. The slaughter of animals comes from the Jews (the blood of animals flooded in the temples at pasques). And the Arabs find killing animals to be grace to God.
But the sacrifice at blot is symbolic language only, where horse means will-power, fire means the will to evolve, etc. but not physical horse nor a physical fire at all. To kill one's pride is not the physical killing of a living being, it is killing ignorance to become wiser. We kill egocentricity and become einherjar to defend the human race from perishing in the ignorance of malevolent trends among us.

* Valhöll (Valhoell, the palace of the chosen ones) is a much misunderstood place. It is for the perfected and chosen. There dwell einherjar (one-harries, alone-fighters), that are equivalent of avatars to be. Val is either choice or it can mean field of life where the fight of life takes place, where we live and die in the battle of life. Höll (hoell, hall) is a palace. The highest place for a human on his way towards godhead, on gods' ways, á ('a, on) guðavegum (guda-vegum; ways of our innermost gods).

Symbolic language in the description of Valhöll (Valhoell) shows that all selfish purposes, pride, arrogance, and so on, have been conquered. Harmful weapons, and even shields and brynies have been laid aside as there is no enemy left, only the unselfish task to aid evolution of the cosmos. It indicates invincibility of the perfected ones, einherjar.

* Hel. Helia, has got nothing to do with Hell.
Rebirths are taken for granted as all other cycles. Hel is a personification of a place, a she, with whom we rest. We take a coffee brake. She is bright and light and cold, perhaps like the endless snow in the wilderness of Iceland during winter, where the midwinter sun low on the southern sky is of pure gold, glittering on the ice, using golden clouds as a cushion, only to rise a few degrees over the horizon, and set again, enjoying a long dawn and twilight before and after. Then the stars, the moon, the northern lights, take over. And we wait for spring to come with its blossom. A new life-cycle. Hel is all-beauty of dormant life. Snow-White.

* Askur Yggdrasils is the tree of life.
* Every human is a tree of life, found on the coast.

* The goddesses are, like other gods, symbols of trends of human as well as powers from the cosmic consciousness. Freyja is the best known name. She is the great goddess of the North. Female powers are eternal continuum of infinite dynamism and creativity of life.

We know: Holy Mary is the opposite to the great goddesses of the North. But Notre Dame is Freyja, the Lady.
Holy Mary is obedient to her dominus, whereas goddesses are free powers in human consciousness, powers of universal love and unbounded creativity. This it an example of the theft and misuse/abuse of concepts from heathenry.

Actually the world's best position (legally and in praxis) of the women in the northern countries is considered to be because of the far past of heathenry -- as total equality of sexes goes with it.
Rather I should say: the profound reverence to the female power makes every girl, every woman, a goddess of life and of continuity of life. Woman is worshipped as the giver of life, which is a prerequisite for our evolution. She is not, like the Semitic woman, a part of man's possessions, a tool to beget children with; not the producer of proles for the state for military purposes. Not a domestic animal. She gives life so that we can proceed with our human endeavour: cosmic evolution.

Women-theologists tell us that the Semitic religions, the Old Testament, brought to us women disdain, and that the christian church withholds it. They claim to learn that disdain of men (i.e. women, or half of mankind) in the universities in the department of theology(!!!), and they get a degree for it, and a paid job thereafter!!!
Women disdain was written in a Book in the Roman Empire about AD (anno domini) 300 - 400.
Before that heathenry, paganry, and gnostics revered women as a goddess.

When the pope visited Iceland some of the women-priests here refused to be gathered to meet him, as all the male-priests (Lutheran evangelic) proudly did, forgetting that the Protestants chopped the head of the catholic bishop in Iceland some centuries ago (1550ca) and stole the catholic wealth, that the catholic church had stolen from the bisantics and they from the heathens.

I wonder if the dress that the priests wear is an act of deception meant to take over from the universal female power, Freyja and all the goddesses? Could be. The main purpose of the church is patriarchy, and that implies coaching the female power. What better way to do it than to take her dress and wear it themselves? Lock her up. Ban her. Call her porno. Allow (and command) the humiliation of women. A fine strategy (tactic).
According to Semitic culture women are a part of the cattle belonging to the dominus.

Sif, the goddess of the field, rides in her wagon over the field to bless it when the corn is seeded in spring. Sifjar haddur, (Sif's, of Sif golden hair) is the ripe corn in the autumn sun and wind. This gold is a material treasure: Food for us and our bairns. Blessed by the goddess.
She, Sif, the goddess of the field, has a man as an assistant in her carriage. She is kona (woman) he konungur (a king). But christianity changed the concepts: not kona with her assistant but a king and his owned woman that promises to be submissive. But of course this is just during the dark cycle of these silly times that anyone is subdued.
Heathen freedom will soon take over again.

The knowledge of life will be regained. Priests will look like men (males) and the goddess wears her dress and blesses us with her bounties of nature.

* Óðins (Odin's) two ravens are Huginn and Muninn. Their names come from yogin and muni in Sanskrit. They are our vision of past and future in a very special way.

* Poly-theon and pan-theon does not mean worshipping many gods. They are not idolatry as we see it in catholicism where saints are worshipped and statues as worshipped.
What then?
Poly means many, pan means together, theos means god. The heathen gods are deities of the Unity, and they lead to the Unity. They are worldly, they are indications in us, and they span the sphere from the Laws of Nature to our feelings. They are cues for us to the ginnungagap, the all-pervasive innermost non-substance containing all possibilities (i.e. The Unified Field of modern science).



The gods and goddesses are called höft (hoeft) og bönd (bonds and ties), and that indicates their function as to be our connection to the innermost powerful tranquillity. We are connected to the great divine gap through our gods and goddesses; a two-way function. They infuse us with divinity, we seek into the divinity through our gods.

Also the gods (and the goddesses) are interchangeable, as they all are trends and threads from the Oneness to the Oneness. They are ties to our Origin, the ginnungagap."Bönd og höft" (boend (bonds) and hoeft (fetters)), are names of the heathen gods in this context: connections, these channels that _bind_ us to the Oneness, _tie_ us to Unity, ginnungagap, from which we are, of what we are made, what we in essence are, and _belong_to. They are the delicate super strings.

Note:
Mono-theos in monotheïsm is _not_ the same as the Oneness, the great void, the gap ginnunga.
No. Mono-þeos is an all-worldly device.
The mono-god in monotheïsm is a worldly god named God, a bellicose God, that demands all rebels against him to be killed. All who rebel for him are given a credit. All other gods than He are banned.
He also has the name "the jealous god" because of his intolerance of other gods. His inventor (?Moses according to a myth) obviously recognised a lot of other gods, as he (/He) would not be banning something that does not exist.   hmmmm?

Note:
Do not confuse the Moses's God with the divine innermost core and essence of us and of everything (the ginnungagap), even if some ancient heathen mystic has been glued on the Moses's God as an attribute in order to embellish his bellicose purpose.

* Óðinn (Odinn), Vili and Véi (Vei) the trinity within the Oneness.
Within Unity the divine knowledge awakens to itself. That is before Ymir, before the perpetual creativity and creations. According to modern science, the trinity Óðinn (Odinn, who knows), Vili (the will to know, the process of knowing) and Véi (Ve-i, the sacred known) reacts to itself, before Planck Scale. The trinity is called: Hilbert, Observables, States, in modern science.
So we see that the science of the olden guys is perfect and correlates perfectly with findings of to-day. And we see how the theocracy used the concepts in a flat and shallow way, in order to suffocate the wisdom, and to tell the mob that it is old but only better as the church teaches it.
We no longer "believe" the flat earth, but do we still "believe" some of the other obvious steps backwards invented by that theocracy? Check it out for yourself.

The olden guys even knew more than we do now in spite of our modern science.
Man's mind is from that Field (ginnungagap) as well as all other "things" in creation! That our ancient ancestors knew, --- but very few of us know now. Snorri calls the wisdom of our ancestors "science" (vísindi (vis-indi)).

* I repeat: This Oneness of the mystics and ancient wisdom is _not_ the same as monotheism.
This we must realise. The Oneness is Reality hidden by the mystics.
Monotheism adds mystic to their dogmas, and uses mystic as a garb, a camouflage, over the warfare. That is why we have lost the mystic, the shaman, the orgy, the gods within, the Great Void within. We have been deprived of the wisdom for long, and the concepts have been abused in order to cheat on us.
Flattened out? -- like Mother Earth was in their mind of the church?

* Óðins (Odin's) steed is Sleipnir, the slippery glider. On him we can scan the eight layers of the world to reach, slip into, the transcendent. Sleipnir has eight legs, and is drösull (droesull) a lazy (slow-going) pony. Óðinn (Odinn) on Sleipnir is the human intelligence gliding towards its very origin: the universal intelligence. Sleipnir does not go all the way, as ginnungagap is the 9. The unknown. Knowledge Itself.
Sleipnir is only a tool, and that might be our spine and our nervous system. That is why we should keep it as a most precious part of our body, keep it pure and healthy. Voodoo looks at the spine as a moving serpent that enables us to reach the transcendental.

* The transcendent can actually not be forced upon the mind. The mind has to be lured away from thoughts as it is its nature to think, and the mind just loves to think. Suppressing nature, in whatsoever form, is advised not to be done if we want result.
Even expectations and rush will spoil the journey inwards to the great intelligence within. Expectations are an all-worldly phenomenon (like belief(!)) and will reverse the process and spoil it. Using force it bound to spoil the whole endeavour.

The transcendent is the very origin of the mind so getting inwards, probing the depths, is just going home. Very easy voyage. A trip away from worldly thoughts could be taken twice a day at least. And Sleipnir loves to carry us there and back to worldly thoughts again. The Ásgarður-Miðarður (Asgardur-Midgardur) schedule.

We might wander why Óðinn (Odinn) is teaching us to transcend. What for? (Hávamál, rúnatal, Óðinn (Odinn, consciousness) on vingameiður (-meidur, tree of life)). So I shall tell you: We get infused by divine power.

Imagine a commercial on TV on a cloth-cleanser: We see a dirty spotted pullover and an annoyed owner. Then someone introduces to him the super-stuff in a bottle. Reluctant and distrusting to begin with vaguely he tries it, He fears it might even spoil the pullover to make it even worse than dirty. Then the magical super stuff dissolves the spots to make them vanish, and a brand new garment shines as does the face of the owner as he takes it on.
What really happens in the transcendence is that old and accumulated stress dissolves and disappears, and the garment becomes better than new. It is infused with immortality.
We know the garment not to last forever, but be we keep it soft and clean as long as it lasts for us.

* The famous Hávamál are (is) in three layers.
(note: Havamal is a plural word in Icelandic, Havamal are; but English uses Havamal is (singular))
* The famous Hávamál (Havamal) are (is) in three layers. The most popular one, the first one,
(1) is for rather coarse states of human existence. The first part of Hávamál (Havamal) is about how to get along with nature as our friend and ally.
The next part of Hávamál (Havamal)
(2) for ritual- and protocol-lovers,
the third one is
(3) the mystery that nobody understands. I shall explain the gaining of sacred runes on the tree of life (3) in a lucid way:

(3) Transcendence is the most delicate part of the eternal tradition. The delicate concepts are prone to damage, tend to get lost and misunderstood, overwhelmed by worldly stagnated rituals, misunderstood by the coarse mind, deliberately used to mislead the credulous mob, and both ignorantly and cunningly misinterpreted.
We live without any effort to understand it and its nurturing power; and some monotheistic sects ban it (for example the pope) and advise praying (mind-thought-effort) only.
The union with the inner Great Spirit of all in creation is the most vital part of the ancient cult of the Norse. But I must still repeat: it is _not_ the theocratic mono-God, because he is a worldly invention only.

Note:
Some mind-thought-effort called yoga in the west is not yoga (union) at all. It is a kind of concentration effort, that in very rare instances leads to ginnungagap. What runatal has is about the total union away from thought and concentration.

A straight-forward comment to make clear the profound difference between heathenry and the revelation invention:
Actually the inward gods and goddesses leading to the sacred gap within (the original and eternal mystic) are the extreme opposites of the Semitic God and the institutions that use him and lead men's mind out, away from men's inner divinity.
The misleading use of mystic is added in order to spoil inner divinity for man and make him dependent on the theocracy and its media.
I repeat: The heathen gods and goddesses are the extreme opposites of the Semitic God and the institutions that use him and lead men's mind out, away from men's inner divinity. If you hear: all religions are the same, that one talking does not know, has only heard or read some misleading rubbish.

To sum up (about time!!):
Mystic has been added to some theocratic "religions" to make them look deep, and that shallow and misleading use of the mystic concept has -- both deliberately (as strategy) and by ignorance (by credulous sheep) -- damaged the profound meaning of the delicate vital knowledge and profound wisdom of our ancient cult.

* Revelation, prophets, belief, confession, doomsday, commandments, bans, flattering for powers, obeying an institution, and some alike concepts that are all to familiar to us now-a-days, do not belong in heathenry, and are found irrelevant as being worldly inventions only.

* The ethics of the ancient Norse are none double-faced ethics. Man has to face himself and find himself.
Loki is a trouble as he is by half the immature human nature, and some funny myths show the dilemmas we get ourselves into by our sometimes silly behaviour and sometimes real try to get things right in this tricky world, where Þjóðvitnir (Thjod (people's) vitnir (he who watches, looks at, called a wolf) is fishing in the great river of time and space.
I need not state that we are the ignorantly swimming fish in that great river, and, in symbolic language of myths, to get to the other bank is evolution of mankind. But the fish are ignorant of their purpose in life and their goal and task, wobbling about in that somewhat muddy water.

The delicate symbolic language of myths always make me smile.

But Þjóðvitnir (Thjod-vitnir) is not the Devil of monotheism. Þjóðvitnir is only man's own silliness, ignorance or laziness.
The sleepiness and sloth (Drómi, Læðingur), and the lack of understanding (ósvinna), of the purpose of life (going to Valhöll and Galðheimar), is retarding one's evolution (stunginn svefnþorni).

It is a pity that we have not been told anything but misleading lies for so long, that youngsters are committing suicides, and old ones fear some doom (judgment).
Nobody tells them the truth of being, and they loose faith in their own evolution and purpose of living as human beings. The middle aged man chases hectically his beloved vanity to help him from sinking into despair of purposelessness. We do not know our guðavegir (guda-vegir; ways of gods). We do not find our divine essence within.
These institutions make us sick and tired -- or make some hyper-fanatic or hyper-drowsy.

* No two heathens do necessarily agree on anything. What a man chooses as his eminent trends in life is what he needs for his state of being.
While we love our vanity we are on that level or state of consciousness. But if no-one tells us the Truth, we will not be able to spot the summit, the purpose, the goal, guðaveg (guda-veg), our individual divine way.

we are consiousness, ginnungagap, Brahman.

If we go back to the symbol of us being as ignorant as wandering fish in a muddy river of life, we should imagine the deliberate purpose of a real fish to perform deeds in his life (the life of a fish) and then: We really want to be something more, don't we?
These myths are meant to be inspiring to our endeavour, not pushing or threatening. Pushing and convincing is not advisable. The listener might not be ready. But still the wisdom of the edda should be available.
The only real danger is that we do not see the whole. We see only the muddy water around us. We do not comprehend the true purpose of the real game of life, because nobody tells us. We see myths as amusing stories and do not allow them to teach us anything.

* Fenrir the wolf, Fenrisúlfur (-ulfur), is bound by Týr (Tyr) the pure bright deed-performing valiant sky god, god of righteousness and human awareness. He sacrifices his right hand for our safety. (Wrist is the wolf-joint)
The story goes: The gods, æsir (aesir), creative powers in the world, are worried because of the swelling of evil. They decide to get it prevented or retarded as it threats the positive motion, proficiency, the individual and cosmic evolution. They do not kill the wolf Fenrir, as his blood would contaminate Ásgarður (As-gardur).
To begin with the wolf tries on, for fun, fetters of sloth and unfairness (Drómi (Dromi, coma) and Læðingur (Laedhingur, lousy tricks)) and those do not hold the evil.
But Gleipnir holds. To begin with the wolf does not agree on trying his strength on the innocent-looking Gleipnir. Gleipnir looks harmless but holds till ragnarök (ragna-roek; fate of the rögn (roegn); these regin are the gods (laws of nature) of this cycle or aeon that we live in).

Gleipnir, the magic bond, is made by the dwarfs for the Æsir (aesir, asa) from the noise that the cat´s steps make, the breath of the fish, the roots of a mountain, the beard of a woman, the sinews of a bear, the spittle of a bird.
I shall leave to the reader and his childlike innocence to find the magic in the worldly material from which Gleipnir is made. And to compare it to the use of Drómi (Dromi, coma) and Læðingur (Laedhingur, lousy tricks) to get away with and gain individual perfection by.

* Names of the days:

Sunday: goddess Sun is the spiritual sun within, dawn of enlightenment; (Surya; gland inside our head: thalamus); She corresponds to our consciousness, and the universal consciousness

Monday is Moonday (Chandra; hypothalamus) but the moon is there during the darkness (of our lives) indicating (reminding us of) the existence of The Eternal Light; life in darkness is only the mistake of ignorance, and shall be remedied soon. That is the soothing effects of the deity Moon, so beloved by lovers.
Moon is also the cosmic mind in our language of myths.

Tuesday is Týs-day, but Týr (Tyr) the valiant is our righteousness and the courage to have a free opinion; He is not much of a war god like Roman Mars (Mangala; amygdala gland in our head), rather a peace-keeper. But the courage to see right from wrong, fight for others.
Wherever we see evil we shall take it as our personal enemy (Óðinn (Odinn) advises. This courage is that which makes Týr (Tyr) the sky-god, the bright one, the illuminating one, a fighter. A fighter for others, but not as a tool under the demand of a general and a king, but only on one's own account and for the purpose of evolution and prosperity for life.

Wednesday, Óðinsday (Odin's day) but Óðinn (Odinn) is the unbounded universal spirit and the free individual human spirit (Óður, Odur, Od); (Mercur; Budha, subthalamus.)
Óðinn (Odinn) is the cosmic intellect. Intellect, intelligence, understanding, our ability to discriminate.

Þórs day (Thor's day) for the power of man's potentials; (Jupiter; Guru; globus pallidus)

Freyja's day (Friday) the eternal continuum of infinite dynamism (unbounded love); (Venus, Sukhra; substancia nigra)

Saturn (Shani; putamen). Day of Loki. Loki is the tricky thing called the dualism of a live of a human being as we are half gods (half divine) and half worldly (half eotens).

We in Iceland lost the names of some of our ancient heathen deities from the names of the weekdays:
Only in Iceland (- not in other European countries -) Icelandic christians realised (some hundreds of years ago) how terribly heathen these names of the days are, so they changed some of them. They understood, Týr (Tyr), Óðinn (Odin), Þór (Thor), Freyja and cast them off. But goddess Sun they thought of as the physical sun, and mythic Moon as just the moon, and Loki they did not understand (i.e. Loki the trickster tricked the christians) and they took it for washing day (laugardagur in Icelandic!).
The christians considered to take goddess Sun and her escort the Moon away, but decided that these were only lights that Moses' God created (some 6000 years ago when He created their flat earth)

* We shall have to point out why the papal empire in Rome had to abolish heathenry. Heathenry spoils the theocracy.
What is theocracy?
When some invented concept called God is used exclusively to dominate the mob, used as a clever strategical tool on the credulous. The theocracy murders and burns pagan people's spiritual treasures.

* Hel is a place where we stay between our births to mortal lives. In Hel we keep a little seed of memory, the seed containing Urður (Urdur), Verðandi (Verdandi) and Skuld (Debt) of our lives -- lives, that are one life with some coffee brakes at Hel's, through her Golden Gate and back.
Our bodies are prone to some changes even some deaths.
These changes are not always looking too good to us, _because_ we do not see the whole picture.

True heathens do see the whole picture and that makes us valiant.

*********