Odin as Help-bringer
The first charm I know is unknown to rulers Or any of human kind; Help it is named, for help it can give In hours of sorrow and anguish - The Havamal
The Old Man is a bastard. Let me say that at the outset; he’ll twist things to his advantage always. There’s a reason he backs heroes and gets them killed, there’s a reason he’s blood-brothers with Loki and gets thralls killed so he can gain access to Gunnlodh’s chamber deep within the mountain. He has his own agenda, something just as vast and terrible as he is.
I’ve said before that he understands the dark times, that he’ll teach you to see the light in the depths, just as he sees with an empty eye. And this help he brings, it’s not a ‘human’ easing. It’s something else, a strangeness that moves a different way, within and beyond what we consider human, but never being bound or defined by it.
It’s unknown to rulers - which is to say it has little to do with so-called traditional exercises of power; an odd, asocial kind of negative capability which exists beyond systems of thought or structure. In a sense, it’s the shadow which is only spotted when the light is blocked, the ice which exists only because of fire - cold is, after all, measured in terms of temperature, is it not?
It’s an indefinable quality, a particular ever-shifting shape which exists as the endless, inevitable alternative process of Being.
shadow (v.) Middle English schadowen, Kentish ssedwi, from late Old English sceadwian “to protect as with covering wings” (also see overshadow), from the root of shadow (n.). Similar formation in Old Saxon skadoian, Dutch schaduwen, Old High Germanscatewen, German (über)schatten. From mid-14c. as “provide shade;” late 14c. as “cast a shadow over” (literal and figurative), from early 15c. as “darken” (in illustration, etc.). Meaning “to follow like a shadow” is from c.1600 in an isolated instance; not attested again until 1872. Related: Shadowed; shadowing.
shadow (n.) Old English sceadwe, sceaduwe “the effect of interception of sunlight, dark image cast by someone or something when interposed between an object and a source of light,” oblique cases (“to the,” “from the,” “of the,” “in the”) of sceadu (see shade (n.)).Shadow is to shade (n.) as meadow is to mead (n.2). Similar formation in Old Saxon skado, Middle Dutch schaeduwe, Dutch schaduw, Old High German scato, German schatten, Gothic skadus “shadow, shade”
shade (n.) Middle English schade, Kentish ssed, from late Old English scead “partial darkness; shelter, protection,” also partly from sceadu “shade, shadow, darkness; shady place, arbor, protection from glare or heat,” both from Proto-Germanic *skadwaz (cognates: Old Saxon skado, Middle Dutch scade, Dutch schaduw, Old High German scato, German Schatten, Gothic skadus), from PIE *skot-wo-, from root *skot- “dark, shade” (cognates: Greek skotos “darkness, gloom,” Albanian kot “darkness,” Old Irish scath, Old Welshscod, Breton squeut “darkness,” Gaelic sgath “shade, shadow, shelter”).
.sciamachy (n.) “fighting with shadows, shadow-boxing” 1620s, from Greek skiamakhia “shadow-fighting, a sham fight” but perhaps literally “fighting in the shade” (i.e., in school; ancient teachers taught in shaded public places such as porches and groves), from skia “shade, shadow” (see shine (v.)) + makhe “battle” (see -machy). shine (v.) Old English scinan “shed light, be radiant, be resplendent, iluminate,” of persons, “be conspicuous” (class I strong verb; past tense scan, past participle scinen), from Proto-Germanic *skinan (cognates: Old Saxon and Old High German skinan, Old Norse and Old Frisian skina, Dutch schijnen, German scheinen, Gothic skeinan “to shine, appear”), from PIE root *skai- (2) “to gleam, shine, flicker” (cognates: Sanskrit chaya “brilliance, luster; shadow,” Greek skia “shade,” Old Church Slavonic sinati “to flash up, shine,” Albanian he “shadow”). Transitive meaning “to black (boots)” is from 1610s. Related: Shined (in the shoe polish sense), otherwise shone; shining. -machy word-forming element meaning “battle, war, contest,” from Latinized form of Greek -makhia, from makhe “a battle, fight,” related to makhesthai “to fight,” from PIE root *magh- (2) “to fight.” magic (n.) late 14c., “art of influencing events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces,” from Old French magique “magic, magical,” from Late Latin magice “sorcery, magic,” from Greek magike (presumably with tekhne “art”), fem. of magikos “magical,” from magos “one of the members of the learned and priestly class,” from Old Persian magush, possibly from PIE *magh- (1) “to be able, to have power” (see machine). Transferred sense of “legerdemain, optical illusion, etc.” is from 1811. Displaced Old English wiccecræft (see witch); also drycræft, from dry “magician,” from Irish drui “priest, magician” (see druid).
might (n.) Old English miht, earlier mæht “might, bodily strength, power, authority, ability,” from Proto-Germanic *makhti- (cognates: Old Norse mattr, Old Frisian, Middle Dutch, Dutch macht, Old High German maht, German Macht, Gothic mahts), Germanic suffixed form of PIE root *magh- (1) “be able, have power” (see may (v.)).
This is the power-that-is-not-power; the facility with the quality which abrogates the known; it removes & annuls & attacks the thing we have been taught and have come to believe as implicit reality.
“We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know ” - Donald Rumsfeld.
Zizek points out there are also the unknown knowns - those things which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge.
These are the Old Man’s bread and butter - the terrible things, the unacknowledged darknesses hidden in the brightest lights, and the massively contrary brightness found within the darkest places.
The help he brings is the help learnt by nine nights of suffering; his inescapable, inevitable binding and wounding upon Yggdrasil, the sacrifice of his eye, the ‘gelding’ of himself as he went amongst witches as Jalkr.
The unspeakable truths uttered by Loki in the Lokasenna, which even Frigg would keep buried; the oathbreaking, which for our ancestors was tantamount to undermining the fabric of society - all these things has Odin done.
There in the shadows he stands, with his thirst for knowledge, for Gnosis; a yawning hungry maw, as hungry as the wolf that he knows will devour him. There he stands, wings spread, to cover us protectively with their shadow.
His help comes from the knowing-there-is-no-escape and turning even that to his advantage. By doing that, he violates even the idea that any deployment of conventional power merely perpetuates the pre-existing frame and context.
His help says: leave what you know, and come follow me. His help says: we shall wander forever, together, and you shall never go back to what you were.
His help says: when you come to the place you thought of as home, it shall be as a stranger, and you shall see it all, in every way, anew.
Reborn, reconfigured; strange in shape and form and casting a long shadow, the knots and lines of force and oppression which were laid upon you will no longer bind you. Instead, you will have plumbed them with an awful, glorious depth, and returned - singing songs of wisdom all the while.
But ask, friends. Ask truly, and from the core of you, from the beat of your heart, with every fibre and sinew. Ask like that, and you may very well see the Old Man smile like the sun. Because when you ask, that’s when you realise that this help has always been with you, waiting to be noticed, to be discovered.
And if you never asked? That doesn’t matter. Remember - the help he brings is unknown to any of human kind.
Unknown unknowns and unknown knowns
Time is short, the end is nigh, and the wolf is always hungry. You have only the whole of eternity to play with, after all.
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