Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 5. The Underworld 136
known to modern man. Its power is attested by literary authors, as well as clinical
psychologists, as being probably the most common motif for personal-transformation
and has been so since mankind has been engaged in the writing process. Even
beyond literature, in the realm of the average person, near-death experiences have
been transforming people since the beginning of time. Every single small community
can name at least one person whose life has been drastically altered for the better
by a close brush with death, i.e. the Underworld, and over the past two decades
or so, many with terminal diseases such as cancer or AIDS whose lives have been
lengthened by modern medicine have given lectures, been on talk shows, and have
written books about how their living with death has altered their views of life. The
applicability of the Underworld tradition, then, is to allow people the chance to realign
their attitudes about living long before their own deaths occur. To accomplish
this, however, it is necessary that people learn to attend to, accept, and learn from
their own mortality, i.e., their own deaths.
The Underworld tradition dealt with death. Reincarnation, although not totally
unknown, was not a part of the Germanic system of thought. For the most part,
when someone died, he was not coming back. Death is something from which
people hide these days. They like to soften the blow of the concept of death by
using euphemisms in their speech like “passed on,” or “went to a better life.” Death
is not discussed. All arrangements for burial of the “dearly departed” are left to
funeral directors. In fact, people have separated themselves so far from death that
they don’t even know how to go through the normal process of grieving and need
psychologists and counselors to help them move beyond the “passing away of a loved
one.”
Not only is human death not dealt with in any realistic way, but neither is the
death of pets, or even stock animals for food. Some are even unable to cope with
the autumn of the year because the falling of the leaves reminds them too much
of death. People have separated themselves from death and do everything possible
to keep from getting too near it. Some try to stave it off with longevity programs
consisting of drinking down herbal formulas or eating special diets, some through
the science of cryogenics. Some choose to turn their attention in other directions
like to “Pearly Gates” or “Violet Flames” and, in doing so, ignore the facts of life on
the planet earth or at least consider them to be somewhat loathsome. Modern folk
hide from death and do their damnedest to keep from being found.
Contemplation on death and mortality, at least as far as life on Midgard is
concerned, can be one of man’s greatest sources of wisdom. The practice of útiseta
was one way that an ancient Scandinavian could gain access to the wisdom from
the ancestors. For modern man, nothing need to be so elaborate. One needs only
to contemplate mortality. Much of a modern person’s time, energy, and sense of