Friday, April 22, 2011

Letting Fricco Move Through Me

Naked. Standing, eyes closed, breathing. Feeling myself in connection with the web of wyrd, at a nodal point where various strands cross. Allowing those strands to pull me, as if I am in a tide. My body begins to sway. Arms move where they will as called by the forces of wyrd. I begin following the inner impulses of my body as I respond to the larger nexus of wyrd. Soon I am dancing, not as a performance, not as any set movement patterns, but in a flux that is a kind of spontaneous Tai Chi, moving wherever the weird directs I move, in dynamic response.

The lamp in the room casts a shadow on the white walls. I see my long hair, Dionysian, flow onto my manly body. I feel the Dionysian manliness of Freyr. I call upon him as Fricco, the Dancer. I am in a body. It feels good. It feels good to let the body follow its own impulses. This is a mystery of Fricco. It is free-flowing and it does not follow any set, traditional pattern. I dance to pray, to make myself vulnerable, to open myself up to the Gods. My arms open out in an Algiz pattern, and then down level as if I am on a cross, and back again. I call out to Heimdall, to connect me to the Gods. I imagine my arms as the bridge he wards, that connects both sides of the universe, fire and ice, and leads up to the headsprings, where wisdom and vision and love reside.

I begin feeling things, inchoate feelings within my body. Images soar by, float through me, permeate. They come and go as if upon the waves of an ocean. Feelings from childhood, feelings of loss from past relationships, come up, well as tears in my eyes, gasps, sighs. I let go and let the love of the Gods flow through me. I let go and ask the spirit of Fricco to fill me with joy, that joy which heals, which heals through spontaneity. Eir is a Goddess whose name means "ease", and she is a healer. Fricco is a dancer whose name Frey means "free", and he undoes the cuffs which imprison us.

This kind of spontaneous, free-form work with the Gods is as important as the small remnants of the traditional we have in texts. It is a wonderful way to work outside wordlock, and step into weird. Spirituality in part is about surrender and abandon to something larger, and the willingness to step out of the foolishness of our ordinary wisdom, and into the extraordinary wisdom of the Gods, which sometimes seems like foolishness to men.

Call it hippie if you like. Frey is a hippie. A hippie-farmer. Yep. I asked him. He's dancing and skipping through the fields, his arms imitating the vines, the branches, moving and stretching out to commune with them, to identify with them, to call them out with gentle encouragement to grow. I think he's doing it to Jethro Tull. Or their equivalent amongst the Gods. (YMMV)


4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've always liked your posts but calling Frey a "hippie" is something that I will have to disagree with you on. He was called the Frey is the best of all bold riders In the golden courts of the gods". The modern counter culture is known for its pacifism and for a god to be called a bold rider that just doesn't add up for me. Not only that but Freyr killed Beli without even using a sword.

8:33 AM  
Blogger SiegfriedGoodfellow said...

:) As I said, Your Mileage May Vary. Nevertheless, the pacifist connotation does have its legitimate mileage, as bringing peace is something he and the Vanir are particularly noted for. That doesn't make him a wimp. And against jotnar, he's certainly got courage and strength. His revolutionary campaign against them proves that. I'll just say he has pacifist tendencies. But no, he's not a Gandhi-style pacifist. Nor is he technically a "hippy". But there's something about the hippy sensuality that I think does speak to something about him. It's just a glimpse, just one angle of a larger picture. Feel free to fill in the blanks. :)

9:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You make some good points but I think the peace that the Vanir where famous for would more likely translate into peace through strength as opposed to pacifism. The Vanir didn't always play nice they cut of Mimir's head and broke through the walls of Asgard. But then again our gods are multifacted, and its always good to see another perspective :D

9:04 AM  
Blogger SiegfriedGoodfellow said...

Our Gods are indeed multifaceted. I don't disagree with the notion of peace through strength, although with the Vanir, I'd emphasize it is the strength of good soil, of solid rooting, of good relationships, of desire and the lust to fruit and come to fruition, of radiance, and so forth. These strengths in fact prove superior to those of the warrior Aesir in the battle, which is something telling. There is still something for pacifists to glean here. There is a balance to be told between pacifism and the warrior tradition, something our ancestors were trying to tell us. We mustn't flatten out either side of the equation, because it is in their dynamic interaction that we find their power.

Of course, I was being a little cheeky in saying that Freyr "is" a hippy, and that he "told me so", somewhat poking fun at the idea of such literalism, but more to the point, I was trying to create an imagery of free-flowing, libidinal excess and Dionysian communion with the land and love. Feel free to substitute an imagery that captures this feel for yourself more than "hippy", which in the end was a simple shorthand. This particular piece, after all, is more trying to delve into personal experience, and as such, has the stamp of my own associations. I encourage many. :)

9:33 AM  

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