Aegishjalmur

by Michael Kelly

  F – The Dragon's gold is mine to claim, its treasures are mine to wield. I will open my hands and the gold will flow from me like water, enriching the Earth, for it will have no dominion over me. For I have become one with the Dragon.

  N – The flame grows now within my own spirit, the fire and venom that leapt from the Dragon's jaws, devouring the obstacles that are set against me, for we are become as one.

  I – The powers of the Dragon are concentrated within me, for me to command as I Will, balanced and regulated by the focus of my own consciousness, for I am kin to Odin.

  Z – I hear the call of the Valkyrie in the core of my soul, the inspiration of the one who is my Other, elevating my consciousness to realms undreamed of, for I am kin to Odin.

  Take up the drinking horn or chalice and hold it directly below your mouth, so that you are breathing into it. Sing the names of the six runes into it, infusing it with the Draconian Essence: Fehu – Ansuz – Fehu – Naudhiz – Isa – Elhaz.

  The chalice may be filled with the traditional mead or ale used in Northern tradition. For the present Working, it is best if the liquid used is one which has a definite 'warming' effect as it is swallowed. Cherry brandy comes highly recommended for the suitability of its colour, consistency, scent and the heat which suffuses the body as it is drunk.

  Drink the contents of the chalice, feeling the liquor's fiery course as it flows into your body. Strongly affirm this to be the blood and venom of the Dragon. The venom dissolves the bonds, conditioning and inhibitions that restrict you and the blood awakens the Dragon within, forging its Essence into a union with your sense of Self, hereafter accessible directly by your consciousness. Feel yourself recreated and renewed.

  Devise a bind-rune to express your realisation of this Draconian awakening. Ensure that it prominently features the elhaz rune to prefigure your aspiration for the next stage of your transformation. Draw or carve this bind-rune onto paper, wood or leather. You should display it in your future magical Workings as a statement of your attainment.

  Visualise yourself taking up each element of Fafnir's hoard, thinking hard upon what each symbolises: the golden treasure; the sword and armour; the magical cloak. Finally, see your bind-rune blazing upon your own brow, representing the Ægishjálmur.

  Spend several minutes standing in the elhaz posture, fervently aspiring to the Divine, visualising a radiance descending upon you. Know that it is your Destiny to touch the source of this radiance.

  Close the ritual with the words: “So It Is Done!”

  This Working will not only serve to consolidate your Work to date, fixing the Draconian Essence within your consciousness, but will also prepare you for the Work of the next chapter, preparing your psyche for the transformations still to come.

  Runa

  Mention has already been made that the twenty four runes of the futhark row are themselves but aspects of the Ultimate Rune – Runa – which is Mystery itself. I would be disappointed if everybody following this curriculum had not had at least an intuitive glimpse of this truth by this point. But it is now time that we started to look at Runa a bit more closely and to examine the implications of the concept.

  Runa is the Word of the Magus Stephen Edred Flowers and it is upon this Word that Edred founded the Rune-Gild. The Formula associated with the Word – and the sole task of all Gild Initiates when it all boils down – is Reyn til Runa!, which means 'Seek After the Mysteries!'

  To place the preceding paragraph in context, a Magus is one who Utters a sacred Word, the meaning and implication of which revolutionises the current of magical thinking and the world itself. The Formula is an expression of the Word in action.

  Runa – Mystery – is the Key to all of our Work. It is the thing that makes us get out of bed in the morning. It is the whole aspiration of and motivation for magic, indeed for life itself. It is Runa that stirs you to find out what lies over the next hill. It is Runa that teaches you the distinction between your Self and the world outside of your Self. It is Runa that engenders Desire, not only for the things you see and want, but for the things you can only imagine. It is Runa that makes the extraordinary happen in the midst of the mundane.

  Some of the things in the above list prefigure the Work of the next chapter, but it is as well that they start to gestate within your mind now. This too is a function of Runa. Also, bear in mind that Runa is often deemed to be a Lady by those who follow Her call.

  It will be immediately apparent that Runa can only manifest via consciousness. The insensate neither knows of nor cares for Mystery. The Quest to Seek After the Mysteries arises from our awakened consciousness and that Quest will expand the horizons of our consciousness in ways we could never have imagined as we pursue it. It is important to meditate upon this Key now and come to Understand it.

  Spend some time now to contemplate how the concept of Runa applies to all you have learned so far. What is the Draconian Mystery that lies at the heart of this book's curriculum and in what ways can you seek after it? In your meditation, you would be well advised to consider again the Seal of the Order of Apep, with its central Eye, three Triangles and outer Circle. Consider the tension that exists between the Dragon within and the Dragon without. Consider the angles and lines of Wyrd – possibility and potential – that extend between them, carrying the Unmanifest into manifestation. Learn to Understand, recognise and embrace this Mystery.

  The Sacrifice of self to Self

  We are now going to talk of a very great Mystery. It is the Mystery of how Runa was first sought and perceived; the Mystery of how Odin discovered the runes; the Mystery of what He sacrificed in order to do so, and Who He sacrificed it to. For if you are to progress any further, you will need to prepare yourself now and make the same sacrifice yourself.

  The first step in this process of sacrifice is the intuitive perception of the presence of Mystery. It is the realisation that the Universe is more than you realise. It is the knowledge that your own Self is larger than you know. It is the Understanding that you have not yet begun to Understand. You must begin to yearn to see what lies beyond the horizon of your current limits of consciousness. You must begin to Desire the secrets which transform potential into manifestation.

  This yearning for Mystery will impress upon you how miserably small you really are when compared to the entirety of the Universe, and how miserably small the Cosmos itself is when compared to the infinite paradoxes and possibilities which are latent within Ginnungagap. But it will also awaken you to the realisation that your own consciousness is also immeasurably greater in potential than your meagre everyday thought processes. The very fact that your consciousness is able to raise these questions and dare to ask them should alert you to the fact that it has the capacity to find answers for them and to Understand this immensity. So the question before you becomes: how can I set aside my piddling little concerns and replace them with this Understanding, this greater consciousness which lies concealed within me?

  Odin felt this very yearning when He sought the Mysteries, establishing the pattern for we mortal Initiates to follow. So let's pause to examine the passage in Havamal where He describes His ordeal (translation by W.H. Auden and P.B. Taylor:

  Wounded I hung on a wind-swept gallows

  For nine long nights,

  Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odhinn,

  Offered, myself to myself

  The wisest know not from whence spring

  The roots of that ancient rood

  They gave me no bread,

  They gave me no mead,

  I looked down;

  with a loud cry

  I took up runes;

  from that tree I fell

  The only thing that we can offer up in sacrifice to wisdom is our own selves. European traditions strongly emphasise the sovereignty of the individual, but we have now realised that the everyday personality is not the sovereign Self; it is a poor usurper, a mere shadow of the fully integrated soul. So we must dethrone that lesser ego, offering
it up as a sacrifice so that the greater Selfhood may assume its place, consuming it. As we shall discover in the next chapter, this is not the death of the ego / personality, but it is the end of its rulership as it becomes but a single part of something much greater.

  How are we to accomplish this sacrifice? By revisiting the Work that has been done so far. Firstly, still your body and mind, quieting the everyday ego and holding the Void open for the greater consciousness which will rush in to fill it. Meditate in silent anticipation of this event. Secondly, reflect continually upon how you have integrated the Draconian Essence into your consciousness, drawing it out of the primeval mists to unite with your awareness. Then reach forward with your mind to grope for that Essence which may be reaching back to you from the other direction, the super-evolved consciousness arising in the unshaped future. Thirdly, when you have practised hard with both of these two methods and have achieved some glimmer of realisation, you must re-enact Odin's sacrifice.

  It would be preferable if you could arrange for some time off work, a working week (including both weekends, for a total of nine days) would be ideal. It would also be helpful if you could arrange to spend this time altogether alone. Leave the television and radio switched off, ensure you have enough food in to avoid going shopping, basically prepare for a few days' existence as a hermit.

  This, of course, is an ideal situation and very few of us live in circumstances where we can arrange our lives to that degree. Sometimes work, family and mundane demands do intrude and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. So we just have to do the best we can; this is not an excuse to postpone the work. Just be sure that you have made what arrangements you are able to the very best of your ability and are not guilty of shirking, for the Self to whom you now offer sacrifice can see through all of your deceptions, since it is you yourself at a much higher resonance.

  At the very minimum, ensure you can be completely undisturbed for an hour or two each evening and put your all into that time. During the rest of the day, avoid conversation where possible except as absolutely necessary. No chit-chat or passing the time of day. Watch no television and be generally withdrawn and introspective in all ways.

  There are three elements present in Odin's sacrifice which you must now enact for yourself:

  He was 'pierced by a spear, pledged to Odhinn'. Now we certainly don't want anyone literally impaling themselves, but remembering that blood is used to stain and enliven the runes, you might wish to smear a little fresh blood on your set of hand-made staves to rededicate them to this purpose. But the main focus is that of offering up the limitations of the everyday personality in sacrifice, so that a higher Understanding may descend and infuse you.

  'I hung on a wind-swept gallows for nine long nights'. And so must you. This gallows is Yggdrasil itself, the World-Tree. You may simply sit in long meditation upon this fact, extending yourself upon the worlds of the tree. But for maximum effect, you may wish to literally suspend yourself, perhaps looping a rope over a beam or a tree branch so that you can hang there by your wrists. This bondage will alter both your body chemistry and the intensity of your aspiration.

  'They gave me no bread, they gave me no mead.' You should fast for the duration of the Working, taking only water to drink when you need it and eating but a small amount of light food at the conclusion of each night's Working before you retire.

  You should now spend nine nights in deep meditation, with your handmade runestaves strewn on the floor randomly before you. Consider the patterns they make and the meanings they infer. As the nights pass, increase the fervency of your aspiration, your Desire to behold Runa directly and to experience the flaming touch of true divinity brushing against your own mind.

  On the ninth night, you cannot fail to awaken if you have prepared correctly. Allow the sense of divine ecstasy to take you and ride with it, wailing aloud even as Odin did when He experienced this transcendence, this enlightenment. Then, when the experience subsides, take up your runes as if you knew them for the first time.

  This Working should change you dramatically, altering your priorities and your outlook. Even so, don't make the mistake of thinking that this is a one-time only experience. You will pass back and forth from wakefulness to sleep many times, until gradually the former state may begin to predominate. Nor is this the only kind of sacrifice that may be required of you. Remember how Odin also sacrificed His eye to Mimir's well. This is not the end of your road of Initiation, it is the crossing of a frontier from one country to the next, but the journey continues.

  The Wode-Self Awakes

  Two parts of the soul complex really begin to come into their ascendancy at this stage of the Work and you should sense each of them as they begin to stir within your mind and rearrange its contents to gravitate around their own mighty presence. The first of these aspects of Self, which should be stirred into wakefulness by the preceding rite, is the Wode-Self. This is that higher, more essential Self to which the lower self or ego is sacrificed.

  Let's briefly recap what was written about the Wode when discussing the parts of the soul earlier: “Wode is a condition of accelerated, intensified consciousness, a Divine inspiration, a kind of ecstasy or even rage in which the contents of the mind are illuminated by magical perception and insight.”

  In other words, you can expect to experience a heightened state off consciousness, one inspired by the touch of Divinity itself, inspired and ecstatic. This consciousness is not something outside of yourself, it is your Self. It is that part of you most capable of peering between the worlds and seeking the Mysteries. It is a part of you which is qualitatively different from your normal, everyday awareness and which can be rapidly sealed away behind mental barriers again by the drudge of your daily routine. It is not something new, it is something which has always been there, but beyond the threshold of your ordinary ways of thinking, occasionally seeping through in the shape of intuitions and startling realisations which you cannot explain the origin of.

  You will not be able to sustain this awareness for long, your habitual modes of thinking will reassert themselves and the old barriers will once again close off your mind. But once experienced, the phenomenon of Wode is never forgotten and it will begin to resurface with ever-increasing frequency, especially if you take the trouble to actively reach out for it. The entire structure of your Self will be irrevocably changed by this Working, as new links are forged between aspects of you and a greater degree of wholeness and integration is achieved.

  Wode, is of course, derived from the name of Odin, and this higher consciousness is a manifestation of the spirit bestowed upon mankind by Odin, the gift of Self-awareness. Through this rite of sacrifice, the giving of self to Self, we awaken the same ecstasy and inspiration that Odin Himself experienced; we awaken that consciousness within us which is directly linked to the Divine source of all consciousness, the All-Father.

  The Fetch

  The fetch, or fylgja, is another aspect of the soul that you will probably begin to first become consciously aware of at about this time. This is a tutelary spirit which will set you specific initiatory challenges. We will examine the nature of those challenges and the nature of the fetch itself in the next chapter, but it is likely that you will intuit the first inklings of this entity prior to that and you should begin to keep an eye open for them now and record meticulously any strange things that may happen.

  Remember that according to the lore, the fetch may manifest in any one of three different guises: as a human figure, generally of the opposite sex to yourself; as an animal; or as a geometric shape.

  Now that you have integrated the Dragon and have begun to stir the Divine spark of pure consciousness into wakefulness, the fetch will be actively seeking to connect with you, so be alert for it. Its approach will be highly personal in nature, so I can offer no further guidance than that at this point, it is up to you to be watchful.

  Orlög – The Sense of Destiny

  It is also at about this time in your
Initiation that you will begin to develop a sense of destiny, the feeling that you are living toward a purpose that may yet be unseen, that there is a distinct trend in the direction you are heading. It is important that we should understand what this sense is and where it comes from.

  Destiny, or fate, plays an apparently large part in Northern tales. Seeresses are able to foretell the future; the three Norns – Urdh, Verdhandi and Skuld – abide at the roots of Yggdrasil, weaving the pattern of past, present and future; you have probably heard of the web of Wyrd, the tapestry of all events throughout time, connecting all effects with all causes. But actually, it is not quite so straightforward as these first impressions would suggest. We need to investigate the matter a lot more closely than this.

  Firstly, it is necessary to understand that for the people of Northern Europe, the future is unshaped. There exist those events that have already happened, which have inevitably led to the present moment. But there is no future, because the future has not yet happened. Edred Thorsson has pointed out in his writings that unlike most other languages, the Germanic group of languages (of which English is one) do not have a proper future tense. It is possible to reference the past, by saying “I drank the beer”. It is possible to reference the present, by saying “I drink the beer”. But we cannot directly reference the future. Instead, we have to add another verb to fudge the issue, saying “I will drink the beer”. But this statement does not inform us that some future event is going to happen. It is but a statement of intent. We can rephrase it as “It is my intention to drink the beer”. We cannot use the English language to reference the future directly, as we can the past or the present. This is strongly indicative of how our ancestors thought of such things, and the language we use affects our own thinking and concepts now.