The violent wind has blown all the snow off Yggdrasil, the great tree of life that grows in my backyard. Now another storm comes to envelop it in its fury, but Yggdrasil will still be standing through the nine worlds when the storm has passed. And it will pass. The storms, although they may frighten us to death and scar our souls, always pass. Through it all, Yggdrasil remains, and there at its foot sits Thor in judgment.
There is a squirrel who lives in Yggdrasil. Actually, there are many squirrels, but there
is one in particular who lives in the great tree. Every day he runs up Yggdrasil to get the
news from the eagle who lives up at the very top. The eagle concerns himself only with what
occurs in the higher consciousness of the world, and he tells his secrets to
the squirrel. Then the squirrel runs
down the tree and tells the snake who lives at the bottom what the eagle has
said, and the snake never seems to like it and tries to pull the squirrel back
down and keep him down. Every day it’s
the same thing: the squirrel runs
between the evolution of consciousness and the devolution of the past. Busy, busy, and always chatting, the squirrel
tries to balance his life.
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| The great tree of life, Yggdrasil. |
There are three roots at the base of the great tree in my
yard, and they are watered by the Norns (or Fates). The first root is watered by the well of the
past and concerns itself with the primal cause, the origin of everything. The second root is watered by the well of
matter, the source of all experience, which brings wisdom. The third root is watered by the “rivers of
lives” (the kingdoms of nature). Here
are the archetypical substances from which all things are derived. It is these three roots that feed the great tree,
where the serpent slithers, the squirrel runs, and the eagle watches.
Every morning I greet Yggdrasil in my yard, as you greet it
in your own yard. Every day I face the
storms of life, enlisting my higher consciousness to help me understand my
possibilities or my more basic nature to guard my life and wants and desires. Back and forth my decisions run between what
is ultimately best for my evolution and what is personally needed and wanted by
me in the here and now. Thor watches my struggles and judges
their worthiness. He weighs my creations
on the scales of the three roots and tells me when I have made something worth
giving to others. It is exhausting work
but worth it in the end, I think.
