Brísingamen – A Necklace of Destiny

A Lecture to the Friends of Jung in San Diego, following one of my trips to Norway in honor of my mythic heritage. I went on a search for present knowledge of Freyja’s Necklace the Brísingamen and found little remaining of this myth.

– San Diego 1980s –

Tonight I want to share with you one of the many wonderful tales from Scandinavia – the story of Freya’s Necklace – but, before we begin I’d like to fill you in first of all on how this all came about for me, and also share a few brief insights into some of the motifs of Northern Mythology. After the story, we’ll break and come back for discussion.

My introduction to Freya came through Thor! Way back in June of 1974, I had a dream that Thor came to me in his gnome-like form and sat on my kitchen stove to talk with me while I was cooking. The dream stayed with me in a numinous way.

My only recollection of Thor from childhood was in association with thunder. In pursuing stories about him, I become more and more enchanted with all the material I found. It was there that I first read of a goddess named Freya. Thor and Freya were close friends, and there are many stories of their relationship and their adventures.

Three years later came another related dream. In this dream, I am at an auction in the town of my birth with my grandparents and I say that the only thing I want from the auction is a gold piece of jewelry that had caught my eye.

Three nights later, an image of a beautiful gold necklace appeared – that was the dream! I sketched it and mused on it a long time, remembering only that somewhere I had read about a necklace in the Thor stories.

In my further stumblings, I came upon some other connections that dealt with the breadth and the feelings I was having about what I was getting into. One was a quote from Nietzsche that Jung quotes in Vol. 11, p.51 that goes:
“In sleep and in dreams we pass through the whole thought of earlier humanity – I mean, as a man now reasons in dreams, so humanity also reasoned for many thousand of years when awake; the first cause which occurred to the mind as an explanation of anything that required explanation was sufficient and passed for truth – this atavistic (throwback) element in man’s nature continues to manifest itself in our dreams, for it is the foundation upon which the higher reason has developed and still develops in every individual. Dreams carry us back to remote conditions of human culture and afford us a ready means of understanding it better.”

The next was a poem by the American poet James Russell Lowell called Bjorn’s Beckoners. Lowell’s ability to capture historical understanding has been praised as “the most representative of man’s artistic experience through the ages yet attained in America.” This poem expressed for me the deep haunting effect these dreams were having upon me. I have adapted the poem due to its length:

Now Bjorn, the son of Heriulf, had ill days
Because the heart within him seethed with blood
That would not be allayed with any toil,
Whether of war or hunting or the oar,
But was anhungered for some joy untried;
For the brain grew not weary with the limbs,
But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll,
Building all night a bridge of solid dream
Between him and some purpose of his soul,
Or will to find a purpose. With the dawn
The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist,
Denied all foothold. But the dream remained,
And every night with yellow-bearded kings
His sleep was haunted – mighty men of old,
Once young as he, now ancient like the gods
They alone who wring some secret purpose from the unwilling gods
Survive in song for yet a little while
To fex, like us, the dreams of later men,
Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we did.

There is a line in the Norwegian National Anthem that also spoke deeply to the feelings operating in me: In Norwegian, it is, “og den saga nett som sinker, sinker, sinker dromme po var jord.” which translates, “Think on the history night that lowers a dream on our earth.”

The last connection that began to prod me into struggling with my own relationship to this material and to begin to wonder what the demands of the dream images might be was a comment from Jung in Vol. 11, p. 409, where he says, “The mythical character of life is just what expresses its universal human validity. It is possible for an archetype to take complete possession of one and to determine one’s fate down to the smallest detail.” Identification is a pathway to understanding but I also felt some alarm about the identification factor.

A year later, fate unexpectedly brought me a family reunion – the news was that two women cousins from Norway would be in Minneapolis – that they spoke English and that they were eager to meet with any and all family who could be there. Well – I dropped everything else and honored my feeling to go. I’m sure, at the time, the fantasy of visiting the home site on an island off of Bergen occurred to everyone there – it certainly was strong in me, though the possibility felt far in the future – but, by the following April, I dreamt that I was weeping because I was expected to write a paper for a seminar, and I say, “No! I must make plans for Norway.”

Well, I didn’t write the paper, I did make concrete plans at that point and I left for Bergen the next June, very much in search of family connections and anything I could find about Freya and her necklace.

To my absolute amazement, no one knew anything about Freya! – and no jeweler knew of Brisingamen, or ‘the Brising necklace.’ The usual response to my questions was. “But this is a Christian country,” or “Well, we have Freya chocolate bars – do you suppose that is related?”

I returned home filled with the warmth and splendor of the entire experience, but I was also ill and exhausted and dispirited, wondering if I had found anything about Freya. In reflection I found myself flooded with rich memories of touring, hiking and picnicking, day after day, and of my cousins’ ringing laughter as we shared stories and feelings. Out of Sigfried it would come that, “If only you will remember to leave the dwarves some food near that spring over there, they will teach you their music,” or, suddenly she would say, “There is a story around that wildflower there that looks lie wool,” or, “We must take home some of these berries – they have healing qualities.” Later, in my reading I learned that many plants and flowers are called, “Freya’s Hair,” or Freya’s Eye-dew, and that the butterfly was called “Freya’s Hen.”

“Norway is only nature,” Ingeborg would say. This extremely close alliance with nature would come out even in looking for a picnic spot – “There are stones enough to sit on!” she would shout, or in describing a friend, “that woman works like a mouse in her birth bed,” or in announcing their own needs – “It’s time to rest the horse and feed the driver!” Their capacity for life would burst forth like a seedpod emptying its contents lovingly to the wind. Then would bubble out such feeling as, “A good laugh will give you a long life,” or “You haven’t more fun that the fun you make yourself!

Sitting quietly alone with very happy echoes, I began to realize that a deeply feminine spirit had been present, and that perhaps, in some way I really had met the essence of Freya!

The story of Freya’s necklace comes from a 14th century adaptation of a necklace myth, apparently celebrated much earlier in song among the Teutonic tribes of both England and Scandinavia. There is an early reference to the necklace, Brisingamen, in the poem, Beowulf, where as part of a hoard, it was brought to Asgard (the home of the gods) as the “best ornament under heaven.” It seems that Norsemen (Onians) took their fate upon them in the shape of material bond, such as a girdle or bracelet. To them it was the assuming of an obligation, a binding or a promise of their fulfillment to fate. You could say it was the material manifestation of a new awareness or a new state, and what was put upon or about the head was specifically thought to affect the life soul. The word “brisings” actually means “fire,” so we have reference in the Brising Necklace to the acceptance of or putting on of spiritual burning and fulfillment to fate.

Historically, about the year 1000, Christianity was spreading over Germany and Scandinavia and many heathen Norsemen fled to Iceland to rid themselves of the rule of King Harald the Fair-haired.

Once again, the poet, Lowell, has captured the strength and adventure of this voyage in his poem called Gudrida’s Prophecy, which I have shortened:

Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky-shut seas,
Life, where was never life that knew itself
Thought, where the like had never been before
Alone as men were never in the world.
Doubt not, my Northman;
Fate loves the fearless;
Fools, when their roof-tree
Falls, think it doomsday;
Firm stands the sky.
Over the ruin
See I the promise;
Crisp waves the cornfield,
Peace-walled, the homestead
Waits open-doored.
There lies the New Land;
Yours to behold it,
Not to possess it.
Slowly Fate’s perfect
Fullness shall come,
Then from your strong loins
Seed shall be scattered.
Men to the marrow
Wilderness tamers
Walkers of waves.
Men from the Northland,
Men from the Southland
Haste empty-handed;
Nor more than manhood bring they, and hands.
Dark hair and fair hair;
Red blood and blue blood
There shall be mingled;
Force of the ferment
Makes the New Man
Leaving space for the body and space for the soul.

In the freedom and space found in Norway & Iceland, the proudly independent, individualistic heathen code could continue to flourish. These people carved out farmsteads, kept swine and built sanctuaries, specifically in honor of the fertility god Freyr and his sister Freya. Boar sacrifice and worship to these deities and to other protective spirits flourished. Rocks, waterfalls, trees and groves were sacred. Some groves were so sacred that every tree was regarded as divine – it is believed one could seek direction about one’s fate from these trees.

Wherever this particular fertility cult lived was also included the worship of feminine divinities. The social position of women there was unusually high – many became landowners and priestesses. Women had roles as bearers of divine wisdom and of the intuitive knowledge of nature. There is a direct correlation between the people who were worshippers of the cult of Freyr and Freya and the development of skaldship and Old Norse poetic culture. That is where it flourished

Guthmundsson, in his research in his book, The Origins of the Icelanders, remarks, “Those who remained in Norway continued to wear swords at their sides, whereas those who sailed West continued to compose poetry and write history–”

This very isolation, of course, also bred its opposite – namely, Norwegian hospitality. Homes were literally built to jut out over the road to entice the wayfarer in. I saw many such examples on the island where my great-grandfather’s farm is located, and I certainly experienced their incredible hospitality.

The poems, stories and sagas written in this isolation were first compiled by a Christian priest in the 11th century and they are the only record of Germanic heathendom remaining. There, in the Elder Edda can be found Freya’s dialogues and adventures with the rest of the gods and goddesses. There is a later prose version of these stories done by Snorri Sturlson called The Prose Edda.

Freya and her brother Freyr were Vanir gods, and were as subject to fate as man. They were gods of the peasant farmer, bingers of rain and sunshine and abundant harvest, gods of love and procreation. The word “procreate” comes from the Latin word “creare” meaning “to cause to grow.” In a sense then, these gods are bringers of the powers of natural increase. They were also considered tutelary gods, closely attached and available to family or clan. They could be called upon, not only for abundant harvest, but for peace, safe childbirth, good luck in relationships, for presence at oath-swearing rituals and for the delights of sensual pleasure.

The word “tutelary” also offers us an important understanding. It comes from the Indo-European root “teu” meaning “to pay attention to” and our words tutor and intuition stem from his same root- so perhaps we could infer that these were gods who literally paid attention to man and can still come through one’s deepest intuition.

Many times Freyr and Freya are described as “patrons of fecundity and fructification.” Both mean “to produce fruit,” “to be capable of.” The word fructify is from the root “dhe” meaning “to set, put together, establish, do,” so one could say that their presence would firmly support and protect one in the establishing, the putting together and the doing of one’s creative power. This is a deep brother-sister union in one’s soul – the earth waiting for the seed. Jung writes in Vol. 14, #193, “If attention is directed to the unconscious it will yield up its contents and fructify the conscious like a fountain of living water.”

Freyr’s name comes from the Norse word, “frio,” meaning “free,” and the word “fro,” meaning “seed.” The direct translation of “free” here means “mobile, able to go at large” – a necessary condition of the procreative element.

Freya’s name comes from the work “frijon” meaning “to love,” imparting gladness, joy and beauty. This image of the union or bond of freedom and love came to me quite unexpectedly in a poem on a Christmas card this last year, and I would like to share it with you:
“I saw a woman sleeping. In her sleep she dreamt Life stood before her, and held in each hand a gift – in the one, Love, and in the other, Freedom. And Life said to the woman, “Choose!” And the woman waited long; and she said, “Freedom!” And Life said, “Thou has well chosen. If thou hadst said, “Love” I would have given thee that thou didst ask for, and I would have gone from thee and return to thee no more. Now the day will come when I shall return. In that day, I shall bear both gifts in one hand, I heard the woman laugh in her sleep.”

The poem speaks to a certain capacity for and attitude towards life and says that life will give love if freedom is chosen – that with the mobility of a feeling of freedom in one’s soul, both love and life itself are possible. We are only held back by ourselves, in this regard.

In my endless struggle to understand this further I was drawn once again to the dictionary to look up the root meaning of “free” which, to my absolute amazement is “pri” meaning “to love!” They are inextricably linked.

Perhaps the union and interaction of freedom and love in one’s soul offers the courage to be, to release, to move forward with one’s deepest inner spirit and passion, to not have to know and to do what one must. It feels like an expansion into new space, reached only by trusting necessary “end-points” on the way, which then, can open up the possibility of new beginnings. Such a meeting in one’s soul is the invitation to listen to one’s own inner tutors – to the sound of the gentle and sometimes stormy winds and rains in one’s own head and heart, and to care for the new shoots of creativity and growing and struggling to break through the broken glass and cement of one’s life.

I would like to read now a description of Freyr and Freya directly from the prose Edda:

“Njord and his sister-wife Nerthus live in heaven at a place called Noatun (enclosure of ships). He controls the path of the wind, stills sea and fire, and is to be invoked for seafaring and fishing. He is so wealthy and prosperous that he is able to bestow abundance of land and property on those who call on him for this. Njord had two children – a son called Freyr and a daughter, Freya. They were beautiful to look at and powerful. Freyr is exceedingly famous god; he decides when the sun shall shine or the rain come down and along with that, the fruitfulness of the earth and he is good to invoke for peace and plenty. He also brings about the prosperity of men. But Freya is the most renowned. Beauteous and mighty, she owns that homestead in heaven known as Folkvanger (Fields of the People) and whenever she rides to the strife, she has half of the slain and Odin has half. She is most readily invoked and from her name derives the polite custom of calling the wives of men of rank ‘Fru.’ She enjoys love poetry and it is good to call upon her help in love affairs.”

The Norse word “fru” is derived from Freya and means “woman, wife or Mrs.” Our day Friday also comes from Freya.

Freya was so beautiful that all the gods, giants and dwarves longed for her love and tried to secure it. Although a goddess of love, she was not only pleasure-loving- she was also a warrior, chief of the Valkyries, often represented with girdle, helmet, shield and spear, transporting slain heroes and dead women to her roomy hall in Folkvang called “Sessrummi,” meaning “roomy or spacious.” The Norwegian word for space, “verdensrömmet” literally means “world’s room.” I am reminded here of a remark in one of Jung’s letters where he writes, “Woman is world and fate – that is why she is so important to man.”

Freya was married to Odur, whose name means “poetry” union of love and poetry. By him she had two beautiful daughters, Hnoss and Gersemi – all that was lovely and precious was associated with them. Odur was a wonderer and a roamer at heart and would often leave home to venture far of into the world. Freya, sad and forsaken, wept abundantly, her tears softening the hard rocks, and filling the sea, turning these into translucent amber. On her land journeys in search of him, her tears turned into drops of pure red gold, which often served to delay her pursuers. But perhaps such golden tears are really the tears of the beginnings of self-love, which can only drip slowly into us through the mixture of pain and joy.

Freya could often be seen riding about on her golden boar or in her chariot drawn by cats. I like what Helen Luke says about the cat as an image of enchanting beauty and grace and precision of natural movement and of the play instinct. The cat’s extreme patience and swiftness in hunting and her complete power of relaxation is truly unique among animals. But mostly, the cat is the only domesticated animal that has retained her qualities of wildness and independence. Lukas says until we can learn to accept her pure amoral instinct as an essential part of our own humanity i.e. be able to see both its beauty and its terror without repressing or distorting it, we can never come to any true morality or to the discipline and freedom of wholeness. She adds, “The power of the sacred eye of the Cat Goddess is stronger than that of the evil eye of the witch. The witch cat may poison people’s minds, infect their bodies and inflict both with blindness, but the Cat Goddess is a destroyer of poison, a healer of blindness and a bringer of good health.”

We could spend the whole evening on boar symbolism, but it feels enough for me to say that indeed, a potentially negative energy has turned golden and is carrying her.

Freya was also the proud possessor of a falcon garment, which she loaned to the gods to enable them to fly into difficult situations. It often enabled them to get into the problem even through a ring of fire – sounds like the deepest intuition one could hope for in trouble!

Every morning, Freya gave the gods golden apples to keep their spirits youthful through the day. Dan Fogelberg has written a song, In the Morning, in his album Home Free that speaks to a way of the beginning the day:

Watching the sun
Watching it come
Watching it come up over the roof-top
How do I know?
Maybe a storm
You can never quite tell from the morning
And it’s going to be a day
There is really no way to say, “No” to the morning
Yes, it’s going to be a day
And there is really nothing left to say
But, Come On Morning!

The mythologist Mallet describes Freya as one of the most propitious of the goddesses, meaning “kindly, gracious or fortunate.” The root of that word, “propitious” is “pet” which means “to spread out, to open up, to increase the dimension or scope of,” so I like to think from this that Freya facilitates expansion and passage through, conveyance and moving into new spaciousness.

I have adapted the story of Freya’s Necklace from Roger Green’s book, Wonderful Myths of the Norsemen:

“Being a goddess of beauty, Freya naturally was very fond of glittering adornments, and, of precious jewels. One day, while wandering through Asgard, she came to the borders of Svartalfheim, the underground kingdom of the dwarves. There she was greeted by Dvalin and his three brothers. Little did she know, they had laid a trap for her – they had set up their forge in the opening of a deep, wide, rocky cave and were fashioning the most wonderful necklace of gold that was ever seen. “Do you like it?” said Dvalin, “this is Brisingamen, the Brising Necklace – it is the morning star, the rainbow, the moon and the fruitfulness of earth.”

Beside herself, with the beauty of what lay before her – for it sparkled like fire – she stopped, transfixed, to watch them at their work, until the necklace was finished_____ in her viewing.

“Will you sell me that necklace for a treasure of silver?” she asked, “for, indeed, I have never seen a fairer one, and I know I cannot live without it!”

“No!” answered the dwarves, “all the silver in the world would not buy from us the Brisingamen!” Stunned and desperate she cried, “Will you sell it to me for a treasure of gold?” “No!” barked the dwarves; “All the gold in the world could not buy it from us!”

Heartbroken, Freya pleaded “Well, is there any treasure in the world for which you would sell me that necklace, for now that I have seen Brisingamen, life without it is not to be endured!”

“Yes!” chimed all four dwarves, “there is a treasure for which we would sell Brisingamen – you can buy it from each of us – that treasure is your love. To each of us you must be wedded for a day and a night – for of such space is a marriage among the Dwarves of Svartalfheim – and then Brisingamen shall be yours.”

Silently and listening to a deep certainty never known to her before, feeling as if in a dream, she said, “Yes! For Brisingamen I will wed even with you!” So, the four dwarfish weddings were held in distant Svartalfheim, unbeknownst to any of the gods – none, that is, but Loki, the mischief-maker. He always seemed to know when something was brewing in any of the 9 worlds.

But Freya, completely unaware of Loki, hastily put on the Brisingamen and hurried back to her palace where she could feast her eyes upon the gleaming beauty of the Brising Necklace.

In the meantime, Loki was up to tricks. He hastened to Odur and told him what he had seen and heard. “I do not believe your story,” shouted Odur, “but if you can show me the accursed necklace, I will have to!”

Loki, little expecting to have to prove his story with evidence, quickly began to protest, – “But – but – you know how closely the door of Freya’s bower fits and how firmly locked it is from within. I will never be able to get in to get that necklace!”

Odur shouted back, “If you don’t prove your lying tale, Thor will beat you to a pulp with a hammer!”

In dismay with his own trickery, Loki set out knowing he must steal the Brising necklace somehow!

That night, he approached Freya’s bower and, as he expected, found the door fast locked. With all his cunning, he could not open it. Feeling driven to any risk, he turned himself into a fly, but found even then, he couldn’t find a hole big enough to get through the lock. At last, flying up near the highest gable top he found a tiny hole in the roof and with great difficulty, he managed to wriggle in. Quickly, he looked to see if anyone was awake, but the whole room was plunged into dreams.

Loki went straight to Freya’s bed and found her deeply asleep with the Brisingamen around her neck. To his total dismay, he saw that the clasp was tucked under her neck and that he would not be able to unfasten it. Near despair, he quickly turned himself into a flea and bit her cheek. Freya, half-awakening, turned over, and fell peacefully back to sleep. Once her breathing was peaceful, Loki assumed his own shape, undid the clasp, slipped off the necklace and stole quietly out of Freya’s bower.

No time did he waste getting to Odur, who in dismay and misunderstanding, flung down the necklace and ran out of Asgard into the mists.

When Freya awakened in the morning to find Brisingamen gone, she could only weep bitterly and not understand – “How could it be! How could it possibly have happened and why? I cannot live without it and I have done only what my deepest knowing spoke to!”

In bitter pain and grief, she ran to find Odur, only to be told he had left in the morning dawn.

“I will go to Odin,” grieved Freya, “for my story must hold some understanding yet unknown to me.” Once there, Odin quickened to the task – “Only Loki could have been this thief!” Immediately, he called for his son, Heimdall, the Watchman on Rainbow Bridge, whose vision spanned 100 miles, who needs less sleep than a bird and who can hear the grass grow!

“What do you know of these events, Heimdall?” “Much!” reported Heimdall, “Loki passed over the Rainbow Bridge early this morning, not long after Odur went out from Asgard. Odur I can no longer see, but Loki is hiding in the shape of a seal by the rocks of Singastein with the Brisingamen!”

“What! Go then,” commanded Odin, “and take from him the necklace and bring both him and it to me and I will see to it that Loki never steals it from Freya again!”

Swift as light, Heimdall sped on his errand to the rocks of Singastein. “Loki! Come out of there and in your own shape! I know where you are hiding and in what form. Come Forth! I bear a message from Odin!”

But Loki, clutching the glimmering necklace, stayed hidden at the bottom of the sea in the form of a seal, chuckling to himself. But he didn’t laugh a moment later when Heimdall also turned himself into a seal and came speeding down through the green waters to attack him! Fiercely, the battle raged between the two seals, but, in the end, Heimdall had the better of it and led Loki back to Asgard in his own shape, in very bad temper, carrying the Brising Necklace.

Odin and Freya were awaiting their arrival. Odin ceremoniously fastened the Brisingamen about Freya’s neck, with the invocation that it must be worn, that it could be loaned, but that only she would know such a moment and to trust her deepest feeling about that. “And now,” added Odin, “You must go forth in search of Odur, for it is your task to wonder through the world, teaching men and women the gentle ways of love.”

Freya’s travels from country to country brought her many other names – she was also call Mengladh, Gefn the giver, Horn, Syr, Gullveig and Mardoll, meaning Sea-doll or Sea Nymph. Each name offers even more understanding of Freya, but the doll image speaks most personally to me, because of a dream and because of the gift to me of a Norwegian doll, a real soul gift.

In a letter to Anelia Jaffee, Jung alludes to this image in the words of the German mystic, Silesius, who said, “God is a small as me – he is the thumbling in the heart.” And then Jung remarked, “The Self must become as small as me, yet smaller than the ego, although it is the ocean of divinity.” (p.336)

Freya was always a happy and radiant bride whenever she found Odur – all nature blossomed with her joy, as it had also shared her sadness. This moment is described in The Longbeards Saga:
Out of the morning land
Over the snowdrifts
Beautiful Freya came
Tripping to Scoring
White were the moorlands
And frozen before her;
Green were the moorlands
And blooming behind her.
Out of her gold locks
Shaking in the south wind
Around in the birches
Awaking the throstles
And making chaste housewifes all
Long for their heroes home,
Loving and love-giving
Came she to Scoring.

Summary

My own feeling is that Freya may enter your life by way of a depression, or through adversity, oppression, apparent misfortune or, even deep grief – a time when one’s natural instincts and impulses and rhythm are lost or unavailable. One may feel agitated, “up against it,” pushed to the wall, or beside oneself, as if one is in a black hole.

I think from such a cellar of anguish can emerge – new patient endurance, new levels of assimilation, new trust of both the timing and the unceasing reality of change and new life.

The deaths that come through Freya’s presence are the necessary sacrifices for wholeness – for they are within nature’s purpose – just as pods burst, seeds fall, branches break and fruit ripens.

Her chariot offers transportation through fate’s changes and an energy and a spirit not broken by exhaustion. Hers is the resiliency of the willow, the equipment of nature’s unique individual designs, the healing beginning in the wound, spontaneous delight that is not infantile, energy for the morning and safe harbor for the raging conflict of the opposites in oneself.

The necklace can only be formed by the fire that forges wholeness, burning away one’s cherished illusions, naiveties, revenge and noble anger, and leaving the ashes of knowing that nothing is secure, that life insists upon the union of joy and suffering and the acceptance of one’s own peculiarities. “Unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life,” reminds Jung. He wrote to a woman, “One lives as one can, not as one ought. There are many systems to tell you what you ought to do – but, if you want to go your own individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in front of the other. If you will always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure-footedly along the path prescribed by the unconscious. If you will do the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate.”

Barbara Stockton was so enchanted with the story of Freya that she designed the necklace above (top of  page). Here’s her understanding of the symbolism of that.

With the willingness to meet the strife of fate offered by Freya also comes her invitation to fall in love with the enigma and mystery of your own life!

Discussion & Sharing post Lecture:
What does it mean to marry your own 4 dwarfish ways?
-Primitive creativeness in the depths – their work is hidden but can be elegant. They are peculiar, mythological beings from the earth. Originally, dwarfs were teachers – they have a particular wisdom – an educational significance.

-They represent the wisdom buried in the earth, the extraordinary cunning and craft of nature. They are always keepers of the secret treasures in the earth. They know where the precious stones are and there you get the connection with the Self.
What is the trap set for Freya?
Under what conditions is one’s necklace stolen and who steals it?
Who is Heimdall – how does he function in women?

What about a marriage with the dwarves? What does she have to marry in herself?

-Her trap is wholeness and she must be fertilized by each one – by the 4. She’s pretty bold. This would be an anima that leads the way – a guide who goes as one willing to be transformed all the way.

HOW is she altered in her husband’s eyes?

-With the collective curse for she carries the grief of 2 worlds.

What do you think of Odin’s words?

-Jung says one must carry the guilt of the Self – the guilt towards going against the collective – the outer assessment of others brings grief, but that’s the way it is. The guilt of wholeness is won at no little cost.

What about Loki?
-A voice that says – It really doesn’t mean anything – it wasn’t worth it and it continues to sneak in in tiny insect like ways – It says, “You haven’t had any realization – it’s just a necklace.

The challenge of betrayal in marriage with inner work.