The Love Of Destiny (This is the section “Spirit and Flesh” from Chapter Three, “The Sacred and the Profane)

Here is a little passage from the book i thought was interesting and very visual.




There is a particular resonance with Germanic mythology in his choice of words. Before the world as we today know it had emerged, there was only the primordial chaos of Ginnungagap (“Great Abyss”). Ymir (“Scream”), the animating spirit of this void of undisturbed silence and darkness, was slain by Óðinn and his brothers Vili (“Will”) and Vé (“Consecration”), who then crafted the visible world from his flesh. As it is recounted in the Eddic poem Grímnismál:

Ór Ymis holdi
Var jǫrð of skǫpuð,
En ór sveita sær,
Bjǫrg ór beinum,
Baðmr ór hári,
En ór hausi himinn.
En ór hans brám
Gerðu blíð regin
Miðgarð manna sonum,
En ór hans heila
Váru þau in harðmóðgu
Ský ǫll of skǫpuð.

[From Ymir's hide
Was earth created,
Seas from sweat,
Peaks from bones,
Trees from hair,
And from his skull the sky.
And from his brows
Made these blithe powers
Shelters for the sons of men,
And from his brains
The dark and baleful
Clouds were all then strung.]

Ymir’s tribe, the Jǫtnar or “devourers,” are adept at shapeshifting, as are the gods and goddesses themselves. One never knows when a falcon might be an incarnation of Frigg, a wolf an incarnation of Óðinn, or an eagle an incarnation of Þjazi. Þórr’s name means “Thunder,” and Týr’s comes from an Indo-European root that meant both “god” and “the blue sky.” The elements are permeated with divinity to the point that they are truly the flesh of the gods. And when the various profane and partial manifestations of the gods in the fleshly world are perceived with the “eye of reverence,” the profane reveals itself to be a vessel of the sacred, and, to quote Blake once more, you

See a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.