Odin, the Allfather

My relationship with Odin has been a long, strange trip.

When I was a small child I had frequent dreams of a one-eyed old man silently watching me, often accompanied by two large black birds.  Nobody had been influencing those dreams with television or talk of mythology, and I remained puzzled until I began studying comparative mythology as a new Pagan and saw an illustration of Odin in a book on Norse mythology.  I felt like I had been shocked by high voltage, and goosebumps broke out all over my arms and legs, as the words It's him  echoed in my brain.

Being slightly intimidated by Odin, I went through Freyja first, but it was not long after that for me to make "first contact" with Odin, who was decidedly less bitchy and even seemed to be somewhat amused by my youthful enthusiastic fluff.  Odin was helpful in directing me towards things to read, and teaching me how to meditate.  After awhile He told me I should switch from Tarot to runes, and I found the runes to be more natural for me and even a bit frightening in their accuracy.  Odin and Freyja were my teachers and while I eventually made contact with other Deities, They were my primary Deities for about seven years.

The nature of my relationship with Odin began changing in 2001, when I had a series of dreams that were intense and disturbing and turned out to be precognitive both in the short-term (manifesting within a month to six months) and also long-term (manifesting in 2006-2007).  Odin also seemed to be "pulling back" -- mind you, He was still there, but it seemed to be harder to contact Him, even as rituals involving Him (and usually some magickal work) got more intense.  At around the same time I was beginning to realize that most Heathens were not having the same experiences of the Gods talking with them and showing them things, and many were even against the idea of Witchcraft.  I made the mistake of being too open with people in zeal to be a part of Heathenry because I thought this was logically what the Norse Gods must want.  In hindsight I know I assumed this and did not ask Them for Their opinion in the matter, and this was probably where I started to go wrong and eventually went on a downward spiral.

In the summer of 2002 I sought help for trauma-related depression, thinking it was the honorable thing for me to do.  By the end of the year "help" had cost me a full-time job, independent living, and the support of friends who didn't want to be associated with a "crazy" person.  Odin stopped pulling back for awhile, and He and Freyja continued to give me guidance and strength that I needed to survive an indefinite stay in the hospital (due to the way my State was handling my homelessness which they caused through their incompetent mental health system), and make it through to the other side.  In 2003 I began thinking I might want to oath myself to Odin as fulltrui.  Up until that point I hadn't wanted a patron Deity because I knew the commitment involved and I was trying to be a good Gydhia and honoring Them all rather than just focusing on one.  But after I had mused aloud a few times about taking an oath to Odin and possibly sealing it with a valknut tattoo, Freyja showed up in my dreams and said "I WANT TO INTRODUCE YOU TO MY BROTHER NOW."  I hadn't wanted much of anything to do with Frey, seeing Him as this benign Wiccan-ish glorified penis.  Of course, the rest is history, as they say.

After my oath and wedding to Frey in 2004, I noticed Odin completely disappeared except for a couple of times during "the time of the void" where I was institutionalized long-term due to snafus of case management resulting in me becoming homeless yet again and they would rather have me in a hospital than freezing on a park bench.  I felt very disconnected from the Gods, and Odin was no exception, yet I did make an oath to Him finally that I would do anything He wanted if He got me out of that snakepit, and within two months I was released from there.

In 2006 the Gods were still mostly "missing" and my brain felt very slow and sluggish.  None of this was helping with my depression and anxiety, however, which was getting worse as my spirituality felt more and more stifled.  There was the occasional moment where I connected with Frey, and sometimes with Odin or Skadhi, but mostly silence.  In late summer 2006, however, there was a notable shift where my dreams picked up with more precognition, and Loki started pestering me whenever I meditated, usually to be told to go away because He's "not Asatru" (something He finds hilarious to this day).  The Gods went from being mostly silent to slightly more present and talkative, and in December of 2006 I moved out to Southern California, to what has become a much better life.  I have had some relief of depression and anxiety through natural supplements as well as positive lifestyle changes, and one of those lifestyle changes was of course to freely indulge my spirituality with a supportive partner rather than live with people who didn't and wouldn't understand.

When I first arrived out here, I felt very lost, and it's probably taken me the most time to reconnect with Odin than any other Deity I was previously close to.  Of course Odin understands that it was most necessary to rekindle the flame of my love for Frey, to fall in love with Him again and develop a stable relationship.  Odin also wanted me to know and trust His blood-brother, which I have.  Truthfully I also felt wary of Odin, as I associated my being closest to Him with the unhappiest and most unstable time of my life, and felt untrusting to say the least.

However, despite all the PR about Odin being a pushy and aggressive whatever, He actually has been quite good about respecting my boundaries and my comfort level, and decided to be subtle about re-introducing Himself to me, through good friends of mine who are wives and lovers of Odin, or at least fiercely devoted to Him, and don't seem to be the stereotype of the drunken wannabe-warrior asshole claiming to be Odin's representative on Earth.  Odin has some really good people, and it is through these people that I've found Him again.  Odin can be fierce, and in His quest for wisdom and its power, He has done some things that can only be called madness.  It was Odin who cemented Frey's urging for me to leave the Heathen label and paradigm behind in favor of the broader paradigm of Neopaganism and interfaith dialogue -- after all, if wandering the Nine Worlds and taking wisdom from where He could get it was good enough for Him, I can't look down my nose at it.  I have come to appreciate Odin's wicked sense of humor, encouraged by His blood-brother Loki, as well as Odin's more gentle and fatherly nature.  He can be fierce when He needs to put the fear of God/s into people, but He has 200 different heiti for as many different "hats", and there is nothing like having a PTSD flashback and feeling Odin's compassion rather than being despised for a weak moment.  Odin is definitely not all white light and goodness, but He's not evil, either.  If you decide to treat Him as being evil, you will see His evil face and it will devour you like a hungry wolf.  But if you respect Odin as He is, rather than what you think He should be, He will in turn be more respectful of you.

One of the things that pains me is the expectation that as someone Vanir-focused and with ties to more "controversial" Jotnar, I should not have much to do with Odin.  I have heard things about Odin and Frey's relationship both from Odin and Frey, besides what I can infer from the Lore itself.  They seem to have a friendly rivalry and a mutual respect, and are often conspiratorial.  I am not the first person who was traded from Odin to Frey -- my other half very much wanted to be an Odinsman and then found himself more and more being "tapped" by Frey's guidance and intervention.  I have likewise known of people who were traded from Frey to Odin.  While Frey is very much a hostage to the Aesir, He likes Them well enough to stand with Them if Ragnarok should ever come to pass (and from what I understand, no one in the Nine Worlds wants this, except for a few eschatology-obsessed wackos in Midgard), and certainly doesn't look at His situation as being all bad.  He values the Aesir as friends, just as Odin appreciates what the Vanir have taught the Aesir.

Odin is also far more complex than having petty dislikes or shallow alliances with Gods and wights just for the Hel of it.  His loves and His hatreds run deep, and very often humans confuse the two.  Despite all that happened between Them, I know Loki has a very fierce brotherly love for Odin, and Odin feels the same way for Loki, still.  Love is not something you can turn on and off like a faucet.  Odin's quest for power ultimately comes in preventing the Ragnarok and protecting the ones He holds dear, and many of His decisions are more complicated than we realize.  He does a lot of things for "show", putting up a mask to hide and protect the real situation.  But to call Him disingenuous is to not understand... and it's very hard for humans to understand Odin.

Odin is the God who epitomizes the endless quest for self-improvement and self-mastery.  He is not content to just sit back at the farm and have sex, like Frey, nor is He content in protecting Asgard and Midgard yet again, like Thor.  He always wants to know more, and know how and why that new thing or new person works, and what He can do with it.  If Odin is "a bad God", He is "bad" only for being too curious, rather like the three-year-old asking "why" in an ageless God's body.  I could have been an Odinswoman because I am cerebral and am intimately familiar with the dark side, yet Odin cared enough to hand me over to Frey and let me develop into my best self through Him.  If I had stayed with Odin, the chances are good I would be doing black magick and getting into bar brawls, but I would not have been happy, and Odin cared enough to let Frey transform my nature and make me a happier person -- Odin is all about the transformation and transcendence, in the end.

I don't expect things to go back to the way they were, but I am OK with the way things are now.  Odin and I have an understanding, and a relationship that is good if not as close as before.  It's rather like two people who have been friends for a long time and may not see each other often due to living far away, and when they do see each other, not much is spoken because not much needs to be said.  There's companionable silence as they walk together, watch the world around them, and smile at each other knowingly.  This is what Odin's influence is like in my life now, and those who would speak ill of Him should know He is much more than a bloodthirsty warrior, and much more than a powerhungry chieftain.  He is my friend, and that's not a word I use lightly.

(C) 2008 Sigrun Freyskona.