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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7493816" data-attributes="member: 58172">Snorri characterizes the Norse spiritual heritage before the arrival of Christianity.Animism is the worldview that natural objects possess desire and intention. Such natural objects can extend to any significant phenomenon, and can include stones, plants, animals, humans, the sun and the moon, even the entire earth and sky. The desire and intention is usually understood as an aspect of a lifeforce-soul, sometimes a mind-spirit conveying thoughts and feelings, even an aspect of pure consciousness. While animism employs terms such as nature spirits, it helps to keep in mind, these are physical objects ‘who’ possess a conscious spirit. The Old Norse term for a ‘nature spirit’ is a vættr (variant vetr). In the Norse view, there are seven ‘families’ of nature spirits, and humanity is one of those seven. Just like the body of a human has a lifeforce, the body of the earth has a lifeforce too.For example, in the prologue of the Edda, Snorri describes what nature spirits are. He focuses on the earth spirit (jǫrð) and the sky spirit (himinn).With regard to the spirit of the earth, earth is literally a lifeform. It is a ‘living being’ (kvikendi). The bird, the mammal, and the earth are given as three examples of different types of species of life. ‘They have the same aspect in some traits, and however are unlike ·in· type’. (hǫfðu saman eðli í sumum hlutum ok þó ólík at hætti.)‘After these ·clues·, they discerned so, that the earth was alive, and had a life of some type’. (Af þessu skilðu þeir svá, at jörðunni væri kvik ok hefði líf með nökkurum hætti.)The earth is a living organism. Its cliffs (and bedrock) are a type of bones. The rocks are akin to teeth. Its soil a type of skin and flesh. The equilibrium of water that flows underneath the surface of the earth is the life-bringing blood under the surface of its skin. Where the mammal type of life grows seasonal fur and the bird type of life grows feathers, this earth type of life grows trees and plants from its skin. The Norse relate to the earth as a living being, in the same way that they relate to other living beings.The lifespan of the earth is extraordinarily old, even preexisting humanity itself. And the earth ‘feeds all living beings’. The Norse value this lifeform called earth.With regard to the spirit of the sky, it is ‘of the air’ (loftsins). The Norse term himinn, meaning ‘sky’, especially refers to the cloud level in the sky, understood as the cause and source of weather patterns. The sky covers the land from horizon to horizon. This particular sky spirit interacts with sun and moon above and the winds and weather below, yet is distinct from these smaller objects.The sun and the moon are themselves living beings, and behave according to their own traits. But the sky ‘advises’ them (ráða), where and when to move. Thus the Norse discern the lifeforce of the sky indirectly, by means of how it coordinates the actions of the other objects of the sky.The sun orbits the earth each day, evenly. But the moon has a complex ‘uneven’ orbit. Only the phase of the full moon rises and sets during the night. In lunar phases before and after the full moon, part of the journey of the moon occurs during the day, thus its path thru the night is shorter. The new moon happens unseen during the day.This complex system of solar and lunar cycles forms an astronomical calendar. This calendar organizes the cyclical seasons. The sun is high in the sky in summer and low near the horizon in winter. Meanwhile, a full moon cycles twelve times per solar year. (A thirteenth full moon can periodically complete the solar year in a kind of leap year.) This organization of the astronomical calendar determines the seasonal weather patterns. Thus in the sense of life-giving summer and calm sea opposite life-killing winter and storming sea, the advising of the sky spirit impacts everything in the sky and on the earth. The Norse perceive this sky spirit as a kind of jarl elected by the other nature spirits, to coordinate their activities. These skyey nature spirits comprise a kind of ‘government’ (ríki). The sky itself serves as their ‘administrator’ (stjórnari), who somehow in some unseen way, regulates the other nature spirits. The Norse observe the sky itself − as distinct from the various other objects in the sky − when the seasons change.These two nature spirits are vast in size, earth and sky. These two objects are species of living organisms, with desire and intent.Snorri speaks abstractly, yet describes two specific nature spirits, namely the earthy Jǫtunn spirit called Jǫrð and the skyey Æsir spirit called Óðinn. This specific interaction of earth and sky produces the thunder spirit in its due season. The thunder spirit is prominent in Noregr culture, where the founders of the Ísland communities mainly come from. The thunder spirit is the sheet lightning illuminating clouds, the rumbling, the lightning hammer that transverses sky and earth, the thunder that quakes the earth, all traits of a type of living organism.Óðinn is the name that the Norse give to the natural phenomenon of changing seasons. It is a ‘fury’, whose advisings keep the seasons cycling, relentlessly. As the astronomical calendar, this spirit of the sky associates two other Æsir sky spirits. One offspring is the hours of enlightening daylight that dies and resurrects at the winter solstice, Baldr. An other is the hours of blinding nightdark that oppositely increases and decreases, Hodr. Probably the good ‘even’ eye and the missing ‘uneven’ eye somehow correspond to the sun and the moon, respectively, as it watches their divergent travels. Óðinn is an ambivalent nature spirit − responsible for making an orderly cosmos yet also collaborating with conflictive forces. Sometimes it is life-giving warmth, sometimes cruel blizard. Sometimes protection (Þórr), sometimes subversion (Loki). The Norse feel this sky will one day cease to exist. But in the meantime, the Norse appreciate the seasonal regularity.</blockquote>

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