Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 4. The Sky Connection 98
side of the northernmost point of the horizon at midnight on the winter solstice, the
westernmost point on winter night, and the easternmost on summernight. Perhaps
the arms of the “Y” were viewed by our ancestors as either a “gate” leading from the
otherworld or two bridges, one leading to the sky and one leading to the underworld.
Only scanty pieces of evidence can be had for either speculation. Neither classical
Germanic literature nor folklore sources contains any such specific information, but
such a view of the night sky is neither impossible nor improbable within the confines
of Germanic cosmology.
Like the Milky Way, rainbows exhibit some interesting features. They only
appear in the morning or in the late afternoon because the sun needs to be at
a fairly sharp angle from the horizon for light to be refracted properly through
water particles in the air. Secondly, a rainbow only appears on the side of the sky
opposite the sun so that in the morning a rainbow will appear in the western sky
and vice-versa. Thirdly, because of the position of the sun necessary to produce
rainbows, south of the Arctic Circle, they will only run basically N-S direction.
There is an interesting line in Snorri’s Prose Edda:
“There also is a place called Himinbiorg. It stands at the end of heaven
at the bridge’s end where Bifröst reaches heaven.” 15
The point that Snorri is referring to is obviously the horizon where the edges of the
underworld, the sky realm, and Midgard all come together at the very place where
the rainbow touches the ground. The place is unattainable by people in their crude
earthly bodies; it can only be reached by a discorporate being. Himinbjorg is the
Hall of Heimdall, the watching God, sometimes called the “White God.” Scholars
often consider His duty to watch the “gates” to make sure that evil giants or trolls
do not enter into either Midgard or the sky realm. The placement of his hall is
most interesting, however; he is located at the point where the three realms come
together giving additional credence to the idea that the same bridge, Bifröst, may
have had a dual function in Germanic spiritual thought. It has also been shown
above that the rainbow was considered by some, including Snorri, to be the Ásbrú,
and by others to be the “Brig o’ Dread.”
Tony van Renterghem in his book When Santa was a Shaman 16 speculates that
all the holidays between winternights and summernight were all originally dedicated
to the Dead, to the ancestors of the tribe, who were important to living descendents
for luck, fertility (of animals, plants, and people), and general well being. The
two holidays which were specifically associated with the ancestors in Scandinavia
15 ( In Edda by Snorri Sturluson, tr. by Anthony Faulkes, (Everyman’s Library, London) p.
20, 1987.
16 Van Renterghem, T. V. When Santa was a Shaman. Llewellyn Publications, 1995.