quote from The Seed of Yggdrasill - page 402 – 403

“Odin's threefold quest is the quest of all people and both genders, beginning with the Passion that must be tempered, made aware of its true intentions. Secondly, the Mind that must be whetted in order to achieve knowledge. Thirdly, the Spirit, which must learn to integrate the sacred power by creating its own spells from the ones it has learned.”

This quote is packed full of mystery. In order to crack it open and discover what lies inside, a look at the Song of Helgi can be a helpful example, as the main character follows the path of Odin in order to complete his own Great Work.

When exploring the Germanic mythologies names are important. This work is a perfect example of this. The original “Helgakvida Hiorvardssonar” is missing multiple keys from my American keyboard to show up properly without going into annoying settings in my writing program. If the meaning of the name is deciphered first and then translated, we get the much more appropriate “The Song of the Sacred One”.

I read this story a half dozen times without understanding anything below the surface level. The moment I found the key to deeper understanding, this Song reveals much of interest to any person on the path to wholeness.

Summary:

The Earl of the King, Atli seeks spiritual visions in a sacred place, then descends into the Underworld, as I have come to know it. This is called 'The Land of Sleep” in the story, but it refers to the practice of taking the conscious mind into the Unconscious, where he finds a Maiden named Sigrlinn. This name means 'Mild Victory” which is likely a drastic and intentional understatement.

Atli arranges the marriage and then brings the King into the Underworld, where the King marries Sigrlinn and Atli marries her Handmaiden. Helgi is the child born from Sigrlinn and the King.

As a young child and boy, no name will stick to him, and he is depressed and unsociable. He receives the name Helgi after Sitting Out and communicating with 9 Valkaryies (primary one named 'The Sleeper in Soul Mountain”).

Helgi (Translation = The Sacred One) also receives his Destiny from these 9 Spiritual Intelligence's, which he sets out to fulfill. On this journey, he has to battle things such as Rage and Hatred in order to reach the resting place of his own Inner Maiden. He goes through Initiations and Underworld journeys in order to find his Inner Feminine. This sounds an awful lot like a story describing the work to complete the merger with our Lunar Bodies. The process of receiving Destiny sounds familiar and also was triggered by certain types of meditation and Inner Work. People commonly refer to 'Downloads" they receive while in meditation, I am of the opinion that these downloads are pieces of our individual Destiny which we become conscious of through spiritual development.

During the adventure to find and marry his own Valkryie, Atli who is helping again (The Intender / Odin perhaps?) pulls a Gandalf and mentally dominates an Ocean Troll until the sun rises and she turns to stone, which calms the ocean and saves Helgi's ship and men. Helgi then finds his bride and she guides him through the remainder of his life. Before his death, Helgi is not able to complete his Great Work and he dies in battle at The Rock of Greed.

This ends the first Song of the Sacred One. The next Song starts up with Helgi being incarnated in another royal line and going through the same Initiations before defeating Greed and eventually completing his Great Work.

Odin in the Germanic traditions is synonymous with our Higher Genius, our Spirit, The Holy Ghost. This threefold quest we Humans are universally working on is a focus of the ancient Mystery Traditions. Our conscious mind typically resides and is ruled by the physical body. Our Passion, as referenced by the author, is a sacred aspect of ourselves. However, it can lead to the bad behavior we regret afterwards if it isn't tempered and guided by our conscious intent.

Certain types of meditation and prayer work to strengthen our mind in ways that temper this Passion. When we work to Know our Selves, we learn that the causes of our misguided passion is generally Love being expressed through a filter of fear contained in our Shadow. As our time spent in prayer and meditation accumulates we wear down this Shadow and the Love is then able to be kept pure as it comes from our Spirit and into the physical world through our actions. As this happens the negative cycles we are trapped in are broken and our life begins to align with our Destiny.

The whetting of the Mind the author refers to is why Odin traveled far and wide to accumulate understanding of the world and its ways. Our conscious minds must perceive and contemplate the symbolic patterns in the world around us in order to accurately understand the sub-conscious world we explore in Inner Work. The Song of Helgi, as well as most of the other poems in the Edda Lore describe ways in which we can understand ourselves and the Universe.

We, meaning our conscious human selves, must learn to kindle this sacred power. Spirit is always waiting for us to accept it. Spirit is always willing to help us achieve our destinies if we show we're willing to take the work seriously.