hey all. How are you doing out there? I hope you’re hanging in there. I’m finding space in resources and people that I trust, getting curious about my nervous system, imagination as a liberatory practice, and copious amount of tea and rage. As always, the archetypical stories within the Norse myths are helpful in sense making and pathfinding for me, which led to today’s reflection on Hel, Goddess of Death and the Underworld.
We’re in the icy, steadfast part of winter here in the northeast and somehow remembering that nature has its own timeline, even when I don’t like it, is supportive to me too. I’d love to hear where you’re finding room to breathe right now.
into the underworld
Let me tell you a story. A story of Hel. Not the Christian Hell of childhood threats or Dante’s travels, but a girl who was born and a girl who died, all at once. Hel, Queen of the Underworld, in Norse myth is the daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. All accounts of her appearance say that she is half beautiful maiden and half corpse. Some say her corpse half is rotted, others say it is blue with frostbite, but regardless of the details, the overarching point is the same. She is horrific, perhaps more so because the part of her that is beautiful seems to indicate that we are being robbed of something palatable and pleasing. Something easy to understand.
Hel rules over a kingdom of the dead. Her populace is all of those who died a “regular” death. The halls of Freya and Odin account for the triumphant dead, those who died in battle, but Hel’s hall is for the rest, those who die of age or illness or bad luck. She is their ruler, but she is also their protector and their caretaker. Many stories tell of heroes and gods alike rushing to her realm to seek the counsel of the dead and their wisdom. She shelters the sorceresses, the healers, the practical knowledge of our ancestors woven through generations and time.
She is a good steward of the newly dead, knowing what it is to be cast out of a life you understand. Hel comes to her queendom through exile. She is sent to the underworld because she is perceived to be a threat to the existing power of the gods. To be perceived as a threat is to be dangerous, to know you are dangerous is, sometimes, to be powerful. But she does not come into her power until she befriends the dark, until she integrates all of the parts of herself into her own strength. While her brothers use their banishment to stew in resentments and isolation, Hel is a generative force. She builds herself a home that she can share. A home big enough for all who arrive.
A liminal being, between life and death, Hel’s greatest weapon is her patience. After all, she is inevitable. We all die, we all decay, we all find our way to her eventually. In this certainty, I find hope.
If this time feels like a journey to the Underworld, then Hel is a needed guide. She teaches us what it means to make due, to care for our fellow discarded, to find a home in the darkness and within it to find our power. She teaches us what it is to be unpalatable, to refuse an easy beauty, a quiet existence, and instead embrace our own monstrosity as our greatest strength.
Every day I wake up to more bad news. We all do. As each report, executive order, or disgusting comment makes the pile of rot a bit taller, I am again reminded that we are only days into what will be a vast four years. Four years is a long time and you see, I have things to do. I have to hone my rage like a blade. I have to be rigorous in what I consume, to keep from being so overwhelmed that I can’t act. Most of all, I want to protect my loved ones, both those I know and those who I may never know by name. I want to understand how to be generative when my heart is breaking. I want to learn how to channel rage into a protection spell, how to dream a future into everything I touch. How to create a home big enough for all who arrive.
I write often about Ragnarok, the Norse apocalypse, because it is an important symbol for me of the inevitable crumbling of old systems and order. In this, it is crucial to remember that a force of Hel’s “regular dead”, those grandparents and farmers, herbalists and merchants, the sick and those lost to accidents and childbirth and old age, play a huge role in that systemic toppling. It is the uncelebrated, the discarded, those who never had a myth written in their name, but who loved and lived their very hardest while they could, who turn the tide on the established order. In the end, it is not the warriors but the regular people who form the fierce body of resistance and change.
With Hel as a guide, may we let go of the parts that must die so that others can live. May we turn and look this darkness in its face and say “Abso-fucking-lutely not, this is my home, these are my people and I will not leave them alone.” May we harness what makes us most frightening to these suit-clad creatures, because that is our greatest strength. And most of all, may we make a home in an impossible place, because right now, an impossible place is all we have.
I’m going to pick back up with my recommendations because I am finally feeling up to it again:
How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economics, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future! (Book) I went into this book thinking it would affirm all of the reasons I already know Amazon is bad. Unfortunately, it is…way worse than I thought even? Like astonishingly worse? This short book is really well researched, a strong case for local economies, and is even more needed in this moment of the White House looking like a super shitty Silicon Valley-themed season of ABC’s The Bachelor.
The Sapling Cage (Book) Margaret Killjoy is an incredible writer and this is the first of a trilogy about a gender-rad teen named Lorel who joins a coven of witches and finds herself fighting environmental, political, and economic blight. I love how the relationships in these books are not easy or simple. This book brought me a lot of joy and I couldn’t put it down.
True Blood (Show) It was time for a rewatch of this camp fest. And while it loses itself in the later seasons and the main male character is actually the worst, it’s a great piece of escapist television. Bonus points for Fiona Shaw as a witch possessed by a witch, and Nelsan Ellis for being a perfect human being.
When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse (Book) A short and powerful book. I won’t even try to explain it because there is no way I could, but it’s helping me remember that future visioning and practice are both essential components of creating change.
Hang in there friends. Find the glimmers.
in grief and solidarity,
lisa