The Realities of Mythology:
Understanding Ragnarok

By T.A. Odinson Walsh, 1519-CG/CW
 
“A mood of universal destruction and renewal has set its mark on our age.  This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially and philosophically. We are living in what the Greeks called the KAIROS - The Right Moment - for a “metamorphosis of the gods”, of the fundamental principles and symbols...  So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of the modern human.”

C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self

What exactly is Ragnarok?  Should we interpret it literally? Allegorically?  If we accept it as literal prophecy pointing to the inevitable collapse of “life as we know it”, in what ways should we prepare for it...? Or CAN we?  These are questions every Odinist asks him or herself at some point, and they are not only valid questions, but ones that are imperative to an understanding of our relation, and our obligations, to our world.  Attaining that understanding (and therefore the “psychological constitution” Dr. Jung speaks of) should, indeed, be the primary spiritual focus of every Odinist, each of whom MUST understand that without destruction there can be no renewal.

“And life itself told me this secret – ‘Behold’, it said, I am that which must overcome itself again and again.”     - Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The irony in Nietzsche’s words is that it is no “secret”, for those who pay attention to the lives they lead, that life is a Continuous Cycle of trial - and - error, a Constant Circumstance that necessitates an Overcoming (that is, a destruction) of itself, again and again and again.  Any who require “proof” of this Absolute Truth need look no farther than the millions of examples that surround them of individuals who, refusing to destroy parts of themselves that prevent their personal progress, suffer and stagnate needlessly.  From the alcoholic whose denial prevents his sobriety, to the tenured professor whose intellectual arrogance inhibits her ability to offer her students a broader scope of scholastic possibility, the catalyst, and the catastrophe, are the same: A failure (or refusal) to address the necessary nuances (and, sometimes, nuisances) of change ALWAYS results in the inability to Overcome the obstacles in the Path Of Potential.  Defining Our Path (as Odinists) as we do, as one of BECOMING, the OBJECTIVE OF OVERCOMING is fundamental.

Correlating the above comprehension of individual Odinic Responsibility with Collective Comprehension of Odinic Mythology is a simple matter of extrapolation, that is of understanding that the imperative of the Individual is the Directive (and the OBJECTIVE) of the Whole.  As Odinists we accept as fundamental Truth the fact that we owe our Individual ability to Collective stability, cultural cohesion and the racial purity it promotes having imbued us with the genetic platform from which to launch our personal potential.  From THIS we learn that the tale of
Ragnarok is one of Destiny and Duty, and we learn that however allegorically the tale may be told, NOTHING could be more LITERAL than the Truth’s it reveals.
 
No honest observer would deny that we do live in an age desperately in need of Renewal, an age in which all things political, social and philosophical have been tainted by the vagaries of villiany only Loki Himself could have constructed.

Be mindful Frigg, what further I tell
Of wicked works of mine
My rede wrought it that rides nevermore
Hitherward Baldr to Hall
                               - Lokasenna, St. 28

Be mindful indeed, and many are the very real plights that plague us, yet, for all the understanding and agreement when it comes to the facts surrounding the need for Renewal, the facts that undeniably account for the extinguishing of Balders Light, we still find ourselves amidst a mass who would deny the Duty that Destiny Demands:

Strides forth Vithar, Valfather’s son
The fearless fighter Fenrir to slay
To the heart he hews the Hvethrungs son
Avenged is then Vithar’s Father
                               - Voluspa, St .53

Just as an Individual cannot live in a state of denial concerning the obstacles to their potential, collectively we cannot deny the Duties imperative to the Restoration of our Truest Salvation: Spiritual and Cultural Integrity.  In each of us must reside the Spirit Of Vithar, the ability to invoke a “metamorphosis of the gods” (that is, to allow our Ancestoral Gods and Goddesses to live once more through us), and the willingness to understand, without fear, without failure, that KAIROS—The Right Moment—is UPON us, and that so very much IS at stake.
 
To those that might resist their Indigenous Duty afraid that complicity might contribute to cataclysms from which we might not recover, I offer thee the Wisdom of “Fimbultyr’s Unfathomed Runes”:

Then in the grass the Golden Figures
The Far—Famed Ones, will be found again
Which they had owned in Olden Days

On unsown acres the ears will grow
All ill grow better, will Baldr come then
Both He and Hoth will in Hropt’s Hall dwell
The War Gods fane: Do ye wit more, or how?
                               - Voluspa, St.’s 60 & 61

You see, Fair folk, ours is not a Faith BENT on destruction, but rather one INTENT on Reconstruction (Renewal), an exercise impossible in absence of the ability to interpret the “symbols” and a task incomprehensible to those devoid the determination to embrace the “principles” that permit us to know that without Ragnarok never again will we see the “Golden Figures in the grass.”

“It is returning,at last it is coming home to me—My own Self and those parts of it that have long been abroad and scattered among all things and accidents.” 
- Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
 
As with any Indigenous Spiritual Tradition—And Ours must surely be counted among the greatest, having survived the millennia despite the oppression, suppression and disregard - Odinism is a Faith that requires of its believers a Sincere Belief that Our Gods will, when honored and called, reveal the Truth’s necessary to understanding our Duty and our Destiny.  Having spent so long “abroad and scattered”, the disconnection, and thus the lack of comprehension regarding our Duty and Destiny, has been profound.  However, the Awakening is NOW, the “metamorphosis” takes place in the Restoration of our Rites, the Adherence to our Ethos, and our “psychological constitutions” bring us Home, to our Father Odin’s Hall, to our Mother Frigga’s Arms, and thus to the most Beautiful Truth that any Odinist can ever know: that Ragnarok is not our END ,but the New Beginning the Aesir has ever promised all who remember Their Names.  Literally? You bet, my Brothers and Sisters!


Come Home, My Folk, come home and see
The Hands on Odin’s Clock
Come Home, fulfill your Destiny
Invoke Now Ragnarok!