Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 7. At the Well of Urð 197
The existence of this subculture of wizards, witches, and seiðfolk cannot be
denied nor can their role or roles. The entire subculture functioned collectively as
did the shamans of the Siberian culture. What is often forgotten, particularly in
this so-called New Age, is that the shaman was not strictly a healer; he was creator/
destroyer, healer/ killer, maker of medicine/ poison, black/ white, evil/ good. In
the northern European culture, the polarities were often split apart creating the
original Ása-pair Óðínn vs. Loki or Jesus (the Heliand) vs. Satan and continuing
on down through folklore until reaching the modern counterparts of Tolkien’s
Gandalf vs. Saruman or the witches of the East/ West versus Glenda and the
Wizard in Baum’s Wizard of Oz. The picture drawn in early Germanic literature,
though, is that the figure of the wizard or seiðman is somewhere between good
and evil, both loved and feared. Even the Tree Itself is being both destroyed and
renewed at the same time. Whatever the situation may have been, no single figure
existed in the Germanic culture; the “Angel of Death” had her entourage, Þórrbjorn
needed her singer, Kotkell worked with Gríma, Óðínn depended on Loki. Each
individual was always a fragment of the “whole” no matter how well rounded he or
she was in skill. Shamans, within their culture, were often viewed as a collection of
“whole-individuals”; on the other hand, a collective of all individual Whole-makers
made up a single, “whole-collection.”
There has always been a percentage of people who are, for whatever reason,
driven by forces outside themselves to participate in the Universe as conduits for
those forces. They carry within themselves access to power/ luck which goes far
beyond the straight forward access to lineage. These often do not fit well within a
community and, consequently, are “loners” in search of a way of life which will permit
them to live functionally. They see far beyond personal needs of any individual or
even of any community. In the 20th century, these folk will often move from one
spiritual philosophy to another, first yoga, then Buddhism, then New Age cults, then
perhaps over to Catholicism. Many become alcoholics or drug addicts along the way
because of their need to deal with ecstasy and other altered states. They have tasted
the Waters of the Well of Mímir and, like Óðínn, are forever compelled to search for
something to quench their insatiable thirst for knowledge. Without a clear world
view, many of these live on the fringe of madness, although many others eventually
make their way into therapy, ecstatic religions such as the peyote-imbibing Native
American Church or Santería, or into insane asylums because they have no other
way, in this current age of rationalism and science where the ordinary person is the
standard up to which all others are held. A worldview which does not support such
people dooms them.
On the other hand, the ancient Germanic world, offered them a place and a
function in life. Gunnhild, daughter of Ozur Toti, was sent by her father to Finnmark