[Main Blog Post] The Seed of Yggdrasill 1 - Introduction and the Books of Old

[jprussell]

This week, I take my first step in tackling Maria Kvilhaug's massive tome The Seed of Yggdrasill. As with some of her other work, it is a frustrating blend of genuinely wonderful insights and sloppy organization, but hopefully sharing my thoughts on them will help both of us get more out of it!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

There are also some alchemical themes here, in that there is a fixed, or salt form, for the serpent, and a flying or sulfur form for the eagle. Odin starts out as fixed, undergoes the change after uniting with the female principle, and then gains the ability to "fly" afterwards. Thinking about the themes in The Seed of Yggdrasil, where women are the inner motivating principle within solid things, this makes sense of what is going on.

I also agree that the book is an editors nightmare. Argh.

[jprussell]

Ah, that's really cool. I don't know enough about alchemy (yet) to pick up on such things. Thanks much for pointing it out.

[(Anonymous)]

I would even argue that the themes go further, given that we can actually find the same motif echoed in the Tree. At the top is the Jotun eagle, while at the bottom is Nidhogg, and so there is something here in Odin's activity that repeats this relationship wherein the activity of these beings becomes reconciled. Is the mead the very sap of the Tree? I wonder.

[jprussell]

Hmmm! Now, that's an interesting speculation. It is sometimes called Mimameiðr, "Memory Tree," so I think you might be on to something.

[k_a_nitz]

Which may suggest that the tree is a static representation of an initiation?

[jprussell]

Huh, I hadn't considered that. That feels like some pretty good meditation fodder, right there. Off the top of my head, if the Tree is a representation of the world, and if the point of living in the world is the initiation of the higher Self, that makes some good sense.