Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 2. Connections 24
The circular aspect of the Flow of the Waters through the Tree has lived on
in the collective memory of man and resurfaces periodically, most recently as the
American folk concept of the Round River which was rediscovered and explored by
Aldo Leopold, one of America’s first ecologists, when he described the Earth as a
”biosphere” in his collection of essays, The Sand County Almanac.
“One of the marvels of early Wisconsin was the Round River, a river that
flowed into itself, and thus sped around and around in a never -ending circuit.
Paul Bunyan discovered it, and the Bunyan saga tells how he floated many
a log down its restless waters. “No one has suspected Paul of speaking in
parables, yet in this instance he did. Wisconsin not only had a Round River,
Wisconsin is one. The current is the stream of energy which flows out of the
soil and into the plants, thence into animals, thence back into the soil in a
never ending circuit of life. ’Dust unto dust’ is a desiccated version of the
Round River concept.” 7
It would seem that the ancient Germanic peoples somehow naturally sensed the
importance of “dynamic tension” and flux several millennia before the various ecological
crises of the 20th century forced people to take notice and describe them
again.
The upward movement of the Waters of Life pouring out of Hvergelmir was
crucial to the well-being of Læraþ, the World Tree. The Waters flowed out of
Niflheim and up through the capillary structures of the Tree feeding all life as they
moved although this is a gross oversimplification of the process. The primary and
original source of the Waters in the pre-Christian Germanic mind was Hvergelmir,
and it was only after the Tree had finally grown in place that the other two Wells
appear which serve to further distribute the Waters out to the far reaches of limb
and leaf.
Looking through the filter of the Germanic worldview, movement does not carry
life with it; “movement” itself is the equivalent of “life.” Waters rise up from a nebulous
source below and are then distributed (or redistributed) out over Midgard, and
because of this arrangement, there is a delicate relationship between an underworld
and Midgard which has to be maintained. (This need will be more fully discussed
in later chapters.) The Waters, once they reach the uppermost Well 8 , the Well of
Urð, mixed with clay serve to heal the World Tree from the damage caused by the
7 Leopold, Aldo A Sand County Almanac (Sierra Club/ Ballantine Books, New York) 1966,
p. 188. There can and will never be enough praise for this man and this work. Anyone wishing to
seriously follow the path of ancient Germanic spiritual philosophy will find this book indispensable!
8 Over the years there have been some rather heated discussions about the actual placement
of the Wells. Frankly, I don’t feel that such an argument merits discussion here. The point is Of
course, a Well can exist in the sky! Logic doesn’t apply to worldviews.