I always love how you share your wisdom with both genuine power, depth and a lot of nuance. A pleasure to read.
As a reply, I would like to share a quote from Perdita Finn's excellent book 'Take Back The Magic'. It's about weaving, too, and I was planning to use it as the theme for the Season's Circle I am hosting this afternoon, for the participants to contemplate. After reading your essay, it feels only more relevant.
In the book, Finn goes into depth about working with the dead and the ancestors. This is an excerpt from a letter to her deceased father. Weaving is the central motif.
"Yet you know where you belong now, Dad, don't you? From the other side of the veil you can at last see the big picture, the whole design, the long story of your soul from one lifetime to another.
As a child I spent hours happily doing embroidery alone in my room. Remember? You and mom were both talented sewers... you stitching people up in the operating room and she creating costumes for me to wear. Thread and cloth filled our house, and I was fascinated by weaving and tapestries.
I loved how on one side of the fabric there was a tangle of threads - threads that led nowhere, threads cut too short, knotted threads, all a jumble of mismatched colors. But turn the cloth over and there on the other side a picture of flowers in a field or trees in a forest would emerge. Every thread made sense on the other side, every thread was part of the design.
What if our souls were nothing but threads piercing the veil, first one way and then another, sewn back and forth eternally? From this side, we see only the knots, the tangles, the threads cut too short or too soon. What if we could feel the long thread of our souls entangling with other threads? What if we could follow a red thread through to the other side of the tapestry as it becomes a dress, a jewel, a rose, a pair of lips, a heart?"
Thank you for taking the time to type this in here. It is utterly beautiful, uplifting and reassuring on a cosmic level! There is something larger, something divine and benign, on the other side of that "thread cut too short" or tangle. I love it! Have made note of this book.
The name Perdita always catches my attention and breath, because it means "lost". An odd first name until you think of "Lost and exactly where I should be", free to wander the liminal world. This author seems to master the art!
She totally has, and her name in fact has a double meaning, that she only discovered later in life. She talks about it in the book.
By the way, she is the mother of Sophie Strand - I don't know if you have come across Strand's work yet. She's an incredibly gifted young writer herself, grappling with a crippling auto-immune disease, and she is writing immensely powerful work in what feels like a race against time and the degeneration of her body. Deeply impressive writing, both from a mythical and ecological perspective. I have read both "The flowering wand" (on rewilding the sacred masculine) and "The body is a doorway" (on the ecology of disease) and I am in awe.
I will order Perdita's book when I am back in London. I have "The Flowering Wand" but need to return to it.
Are you familiar with "The Alchemy of Illness" by Kat Duff. That is best book I have read about the ecology of illness so far. Always open to more, thank you!
Thank you for this fascinating article Imelda. I have heard of the Norns and knew little about them. I've read and worked more with the Moirai from Greek mythology where they do talk very much about the weaving of the thread. They are the daughters of the Goddess Ananke, also known as Necessity. (See Plato's The Republic and The myth of Er)
The first sister, which is either Clotho or Lakesis (depending on where you read it) is the one who weaves the thread of the incoming Soul, the weaving also weaves together the Soul and the Daemon. The second sister is the one who ties the knots, which is where the term a twist of fate originates. It is those crossroads moments of chosing a familiar way of being, or chosing another path which is the untrodden way. Atropos, the elder sister, is the one with the scissors who cuts the thread. What I love about Atropos is that she is at the beginning as well as the end with the cutting of the umbilical cord.
What I love about the Moirai and the Norns is they are sisters, not brothers. Always coming from and emerging from the feminine.
Thank you so much for sharing that here! I have worked with Clotho, Lachesis and Atropo in the past (until the Norns called me back to my ancestral tradition). I will meditate more on the weaving together of the Soul and the Daemon, that really gets my attention today! And yes, next week I am teaching a module exploring the deeply feminine powers at the heart of Old Norse cosmology. It is not all "male gods and Vikings"...
In rethinking about the Norns being connected with water, I really want to explore the rune Lagu a bit more closely. I'm wondering what kind of deeper connection is there?
The connections between this post and the last one "Of Bears Eating Placentas" shine so strongly to me. And both posts remind me of a vision I had many years ago now. In that vision I was first at the centre of a web of golden light and I knew that each point where the threads of light met or crossed was a being. A few of those points shone like mighty fires, more were like candle flames and some were barely noticeable. Then the focus shifted as if someone had pressed a switch and I was no longer in the centre but suddenly "I" was surrounding this web, somehow both part of it and yet containing it.
It's a vision that's stayed with me and one I've had other experiences with too where perspectives shifted in and out. My understanding of the threads of golden light I saw is that they are a visual representation of the energy the flows between each of us as we touch and connect with other lives. Nothing is truly separate but the threads of connection can be changed by our actions, strengthened, weakened, even teased apart to be connected in other ways.
Anyway both this post and the last one have reminded me of this vision of connectedness. This vision where I was both containing the whole web of light and at the centre of it.
Thank you! I love this line: "I" was surrounding this web, somehow both part of it and yet containing it". One can extrapolate on that endlessly: those who have wisdom (and some energy to spare) are able to focus more on containing. Those with "small candle flames" need to tend their own inner fire (life force) first. Beautiful and instructive!
Thank you for another helping of rich food for thought. To my mind, destiny is the destination of this lifetime which we'll reach one way or another. Fate brings unexpected twists and turns, often caused by external forces that we don't fully understand. The meaning and causation vary according to our level of understanding. All is connected in the end, ans our understanding changes as we evolve.
I was in a way surprised, but also pleasantly not so- by what you wrote about life, the universe and fate, and your true understanding of karma and psychology, as it resonated very strongly with what I understand about these matters. Spot on! Perhaps that is because I have always had an undercurrent background through family conections with the 'esoteric' world from a early age and further how much this interconnects with both recent scientific understanding (by some extraordinary people) and my interests in the paranormal, dowsing, the 'subspace' world of nature spirits et al and their recent time ebodiments as UFOs and crop circles, for example. Certainly what you say is not limited to Norse mythology but is widespread through all ancient understandings of way things are.
Yes, I read widely and studied many traditions before being called to focus more exclusively on the Old Norse Traditions. So I am aware that other material supports what I wrote. However, as we cannot provide "hard or scientific evidence" and as these things can be quite "confronting" for people who have not read widely on global spiritual belief systems for decades, I think it is wise to write about personal experience - and leave space for other people to arrive at different conclusions and beliefs. My choice and always following guidance from my helping spirits. I am only trying to open the door "a crack" so people engage with these big questions.
Good morning Imelda. As always your essay gaves me much to think about.
Fate and Destiny. I always have trouble with the idea that everything is already fixed , that what ever you do this will not change a thing.
I am brought up in a protestant Christian part of the Netherlands. Here is the idea that God is almighty and all knowing so He knows if a person will go to heaven or to hell no matter what he or she did, the so called Predestination This can make your live so unhappy! For me this was the reading to break with Christianity and all religion. For a long time I did not want to hear or read about anything spiritual.
When I grew older this attitude towards spirituality changed and I start reading about boudism and Shamanism. But still sometimes I have doubts and I think ‘ what am I doing , drumming rattling building altars and so on. ‘
I understand that completely! I still have occasional moments where my Roman Catholic upbringing (and brain washing) washes over me and I need to take a moment to ground myself and ask myself how I can use some of those teachings positively (honouring my ancestors) without buying into the entire belief system. It is a job for life, isn't it? Groetjes!
Thanks for the shoutout Imelda! I'm looking forward to discussing all of this more on Tuesday... We definitely won't run out of things to chat about that's for sure! Your comment about the light-workers clearing karma in an afternoon at the beginning of this essay made me smile : ) also your paintings are brilliant!! I love how they so wonderfully animate your essays! love, Jodi x
I just wrote a long reply to this and it's gone! An excellent piece thank you. Along with this recipe please can I have a £ for every time someone tells me the Norns represent past present and future? My study with you, my reading and personal experience of working in relationship with the Norns I can say they are definitely more water beings. I'll never forget my first dive into their Well? I cannot wait for the new book. Reading that short extract took me straight back to Sweden I felt it deep within me, deep in my heart and rippling through my body. The big wow moment Kelly and I had.
I accidentally wiped half a draft essay the other day : ( The Norns required a rethink and re-write I guess...
I remember and love those WOW moments. The second cohort arrives next week, so just planning, cleaning and cutting the grass.... As you know, the Lake and Sea miss Water Woman! XXX
I always love how you share your wisdom with both genuine power, depth and a lot of nuance. A pleasure to read.
As a reply, I would like to share a quote from Perdita Finn's excellent book 'Take Back The Magic'. It's about weaving, too, and I was planning to use it as the theme for the Season's Circle I am hosting this afternoon, for the participants to contemplate. After reading your essay, it feels only more relevant.
In the book, Finn goes into depth about working with the dead and the ancestors. This is an excerpt from a letter to her deceased father. Weaving is the central motif.
"Yet you know where you belong now, Dad, don't you? From the other side of the veil you can at last see the big picture, the whole design, the long story of your soul from one lifetime to another.
As a child I spent hours happily doing embroidery alone in my room. Remember? You and mom were both talented sewers... you stitching people up in the operating room and she creating costumes for me to wear. Thread and cloth filled our house, and I was fascinated by weaving and tapestries.
I loved how on one side of the fabric there was a tangle of threads - threads that led nowhere, threads cut too short, knotted threads, all a jumble of mismatched colors. But turn the cloth over and there on the other side a picture of flowers in a field or trees in a forest would emerge. Every thread made sense on the other side, every thread was part of the design.
What if our souls were nothing but threads piercing the veil, first one way and then another, sewn back and forth eternally? From this side, we see only the knots, the tangles, the threads cut too short or too soon. What if we could feel the long thread of our souls entangling with other threads? What if we could follow a red thread through to the other side of the tapestry as it becomes a dress, a jewel, a rose, a pair of lips, a heart?"
Thank you for taking the time to type this in here. It is utterly beautiful, uplifting and reassuring on a cosmic level! There is something larger, something divine and benign, on the other side of that "thread cut too short" or tangle. I love it! Have made note of this book.
The name Perdita always catches my attention and breath, because it means "lost". An odd first name until you think of "Lost and exactly where I should be", free to wander the liminal world. This author seems to master the art!
She totally has, and her name in fact has a double meaning, that she only discovered later in life. She talks about it in the book.
By the way, she is the mother of Sophie Strand - I don't know if you have come across Strand's work yet. She's an incredibly gifted young writer herself, grappling with a crippling auto-immune disease, and she is writing immensely powerful work in what feels like a race against time and the degeneration of her body. Deeply impressive writing, both from a mythical and ecological perspective. I have read both "The flowering wand" (on rewilding the sacred masculine) and "The body is a doorway" (on the ecology of disease) and I am in awe.
I will order Perdita's book when I am back in London. I have "The Flowering Wand" but need to return to it.
Are you familiar with "The Alchemy of Illness" by Kat Duff. That is best book I have read about the ecology of illness so far. Always open to more, thank you!
I had not heard of that book yet - will check it out!
Thank you for this fascinating article Imelda. I have heard of the Norns and knew little about them. I've read and worked more with the Moirai from Greek mythology where they do talk very much about the weaving of the thread. They are the daughters of the Goddess Ananke, also known as Necessity. (See Plato's The Republic and The myth of Er)
The first sister, which is either Clotho or Lakesis (depending on where you read it) is the one who weaves the thread of the incoming Soul, the weaving also weaves together the Soul and the Daemon. The second sister is the one who ties the knots, which is where the term a twist of fate originates. It is those crossroads moments of chosing a familiar way of being, or chosing another path which is the untrodden way. Atropos, the elder sister, is the one with the scissors who cuts the thread. What I love about Atropos is that she is at the beginning as well as the end with the cutting of the umbilical cord.
What I love about the Moirai and the Norns is they are sisters, not brothers. Always coming from and emerging from the feminine.
Thank you again for sharing all that you do.
Thank you so much for sharing that here! I have worked with Clotho, Lachesis and Atropo in the past (until the Norns called me back to my ancestral tradition). I will meditate more on the weaving together of the Soul and the Daemon, that really gets my attention today! And yes, next week I am teaching a module exploring the deeply feminine powers at the heart of Old Norse cosmology. It is not all "male gods and Vikings"...
In rethinking about the Norns being connected with water, I really want to explore the rune Lagu a bit more closely. I'm wondering what kind of deeper connection is there?
Dive into Urdr’s Well and report back?
The connections between this post and the last one "Of Bears Eating Placentas" shine so strongly to me. And both posts remind me of a vision I had many years ago now. In that vision I was first at the centre of a web of golden light and I knew that each point where the threads of light met or crossed was a being. A few of those points shone like mighty fires, more were like candle flames and some were barely noticeable. Then the focus shifted as if someone had pressed a switch and I was no longer in the centre but suddenly "I" was surrounding this web, somehow both part of it and yet containing it.
It's a vision that's stayed with me and one I've had other experiences with too where perspectives shifted in and out. My understanding of the threads of golden light I saw is that they are a visual representation of the energy the flows between each of us as we touch and connect with other lives. Nothing is truly separate but the threads of connection can be changed by our actions, strengthened, weakened, even teased apart to be connected in other ways.
Anyway both this post and the last one have reminded me of this vision of connectedness. This vision where I was both containing the whole web of light and at the centre of it.
Thank you! I love this line: "I" was surrounding this web, somehow both part of it and yet containing it". One can extrapolate on that endlessly: those who have wisdom (and some energy to spare) are able to focus more on containing. Those with "small candle flames" need to tend their own inner fire (life force) first. Beautiful and instructive!
Thank you for another helping of rich food for thought. To my mind, destiny is the destination of this lifetime which we'll reach one way or another. Fate brings unexpected twists and turns, often caused by external forces that we don't fully understand. The meaning and causation vary according to our level of understanding. All is connected in the end, ans our understanding changes as we evolve.
Thank you for sharing! Our understanding certainly keeps changing and evolving all the time!
Hi Imelda,
I was in a way surprised, but also pleasantly not so- by what you wrote about life, the universe and fate, and your true understanding of karma and psychology, as it resonated very strongly with what I understand about these matters. Spot on! Perhaps that is because I have always had an undercurrent background through family conections with the 'esoteric' world from a early age and further how much this interconnects with both recent scientific understanding (by some extraordinary people) and my interests in the paranormal, dowsing, the 'subspace' world of nature spirits et al and their recent time ebodiments as UFOs and crop circles, for example. Certainly what you say is not limited to Norse mythology but is widespread through all ancient understandings of way things are.
Hi Andrew,
Yes, I read widely and studied many traditions before being called to focus more exclusively on the Old Norse Traditions. So I am aware that other material supports what I wrote. However, as we cannot provide "hard or scientific evidence" and as these things can be quite "confronting" for people who have not read widely on global spiritual belief systems for decades, I think it is wise to write about personal experience - and leave space for other people to arrive at different conclusions and beliefs. My choice and always following guidance from my helping spirits. I am only trying to open the door "a crack" so people engage with these big questions.
Good morning Imelda. As always your essay gaves me much to think about.
Fate and Destiny. I always have trouble with the idea that everything is already fixed , that what ever you do this will not change a thing.
I am brought up in a protestant Christian part of the Netherlands. Here is the idea that God is almighty and all knowing so He knows if a person will go to heaven or to hell no matter what he or she did, the so called Predestination This can make your live so unhappy! For me this was the reading to break with Christianity and all religion. For a long time I did not want to hear or read about anything spiritual.
When I grew older this attitude towards spirituality changed and I start reading about boudism and Shamanism. But still sometimes I have doubts and I think ‘ what am I doing , drumming rattling building altars and so on. ‘
I understand that completely! I still have occasional moments where my Roman Catholic upbringing (and brain washing) washes over me and I need to take a moment to ground myself and ask myself how I can use some of those teachings positively (honouring my ancestors) without buying into the entire belief system. It is a job for life, isn't it? Groetjes!
Thanks for the shoutout Imelda! I'm looking forward to discussing all of this more on Tuesday... We definitely won't run out of things to chat about that's for sure! Your comment about the light-workers clearing karma in an afternoon at the beginning of this essay made me smile : ) also your paintings are brilliant!! I love how they so wonderfully animate your essays! love, Jodi x
I just wrote a long reply to this and it's gone! An excellent piece thank you. Along with this recipe please can I have a £ for every time someone tells me the Norns represent past present and future? My study with you, my reading and personal experience of working in relationship with the Norns I can say they are definitely more water beings. I'll never forget my first dive into their Well? I cannot wait for the new book. Reading that short extract took me straight back to Sweden I felt it deep within me, deep in my heart and rippling through my body. The big wow moment Kelly and I had.
Oh no, what a shame!
I accidentally wiped half a draft essay the other day : ( The Norns required a rethink and re-write I guess...
I remember and love those WOW moments. The second cohort arrives next week, so just planning, cleaning and cutting the grass.... As you know, the Lake and Sea miss Water Woman! XXX