Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 6. The Sky 166
20 th century, folks are simply looking for money to grab as opposed to bringing an
unwholesome state back into a sense of wholeness.
On the other hand some communities have sold themselves into slavery by grabbing
for Andvari’s Gold. They bring in businesses, manufacturing firms and government
deals looking to increase the value of their own meager holdings only to find
that twenty years down the line they have lost all control and rights. Entire towns
have lost water rights, mineral rights, land rights, and access rights—all passed over
to mega-businesses and governmental agencies to increase the value of property by a
few points. To the ancient Germanic peoples, stewardship over family land-holdings
was considered a sacred duty; gold and cattle were the mobile forms of money, but
man without land was a slave. In this sense, the western hemisphere is filled with
slaves, as well as outlaws.
There is an Anglo-Saxon saying that goes “Plan as if you are going to live forever,
but work as if you are going to die tomorrow.” In other words, ”Don’t do anything
today that you or your decedents might regret somewhere down the line.” 31 Germanic
mythology is filled with such tales of rash decisions which needed amending.
Often such tales were intended to be somewhat humorous and most often resulted
in the individual God’s (usually Loki, the mischief-maker) taking responsibility for
the act committed. For the ancient Germanic peoples,“taking responsibility” was
considered to be an honorable act. Adam of Bremen in describing the Danes of
Sjælland said that
“if they are caught in crimes affecting the royal interest or other wrongdoing,
[they] would rather lose their heads than their hides. No kind of
punishment is found there other than the axe and enslavement; and when
a man is condemned, then to be cheerful is an honor. For the Danes so
abominate tears and lamentation and other kinds of sorrow, which we count
salutary, that a man is allowed to weep neither for his sins nor for the dead
who were dear to him.” 32
It should be noted that “tears and lamentation” were not unknown; even the Goddess,
Freyja, lamented the loss of Her husband, Óð, and all things shed tears at the
death of Balder, the son of Óðínn, with the exception of Þökk, a cave-dwelling giantess,
who, at the time of Snorri, was presumed to be Loki. But, taking responsibility
was considered to be honorable, a sacred duty, and tears were not to be shed.
31 The modern version might go something like this: ”Plan as quickly as possible, work like
you are going to live forever, and when the inevitable foul-ups occur (as they will, due to poor
planning), either do a patch job or fudge the data at the end of the project.” We tend to skimp on
planning these days and spend millions of dollars in man-hours fixing up botched jobs. Somehow
we are made to feel that this is acceptable.
32 P. G. Foote and D. M. Wilson, p. 18.