Yggdrasil’s Path – Journey hoard

The Library is a source of never-ending knowledge. It was discovered by an early participant on Yggdrasil’s Path who has given permission for subsequent wayfarers to use it. You can visit it with a particular intention or book title in mind ‘e.g. to find out about Yeast’ or you can be open to what comes. The first way tends to be easier to start with.

Socran is a dvergar. Care of the library has been passed down through his family for generations. He is the same height as you or I with round, gold spectacles, and a fondness for green. I have never been to the library and not found him there. He is its custodian, its steward, its cataloguer and, in many ways, its servant, protector and lover. He does have one other place of devotion, a small dwelling to the side of the library where his mother lives. Socran’s mother has a form of dementia and she can often be found simply sitting in her rocking chair gazing at the wall or window. She is happy for you to make her tea, which she will sip daintily, she also enjoys song and poetry (or so Socran tells me). Soul healers may be surprised to note that, if they sit their long enough, the spirit of Socran’s mother will appear by the side of her body. She is a whitty, bustling woman who laughs when you ask her why she isn’t in her body ‘I was always two steps ahead’ she says before asking you to note down a recipe she wants Socran to add to the library collection.

The entrance to the library appears to shift but is always in the trunk of the world tree, normally accessed via a wide branch. There is an outer door which opens into a large porch followedby a second, polished wood door. Socran will often meet you there, if not, go through the second door and you will see his reception desk. The desk is large, more a counter really, and made of polished wood. There is a golden bell on it which I have never had to ring.

The library itself has floors and floors of bookshelves accessed via beautiful staircases and ladders on wheels. There are many reading desks. Two places of note are:

– A section devoted to the plant and animal kingoms of the night lit purely by bioluminesence

– An enormous section which is really a library in its own right, full of objects

 To get there

• Socran does not require gifts (respecting and sharing knowledge are his primary focus) but he does respond well to care for his mother and occasional gifts – I made a green wool case for his glasses which he liked
• Connect to the world tree with your fetch and in your journeying ‘wear’
• Go to the doorway
• Open and greet Socran with your name and purpose
• He will take you to a shelf and bring down the book. Examine the cover carefully (including my touch), take it all in. Read the title, open the book. Then open your eyes, write the name of the title and continue to write the contents of the book.
• Read through what you have written

The elemental platform of Yggdrasil is a place unattested to in any text. I encountered it on one of my first voyages out onto Yggdrasil’s Path. It’s keeper and inhabitent is Iuvenis.

Iuvenis is not from the northern pantheon. He came across the seas following the same routes as the elves did in ancient times when the worlds were still fluid. He remembers warm climbs, a great academy, the art of alchemy and the study of philosophy. In dream he returns to these places, but the threads are severed and lead him nowhere. He knows that a return journey would be needed for full recovery of his lost memories and he does not wish to return, he has found his place here under the northern stars.

Iuvenis means youth and he is, indeed, forever young of heart. His thirst for knowledge is insatiable. He met Odin on the road long ago and the wolf, Geri ran straight to him and licked his long, elegant hands. He was acting as a teacher at the time, in a village on the borderlands of Jotunheim and Muspelheim where lava flows thickly and crystals of unsurpassed beauty are birthed. Iuvenis likes classifications and so, to me, he appears as a traditional wizard complete with long beard and sometimes, stars bedeck his midnight blue robes. He has chosen many other costumes for his Wayfarer visitors over the years.

Odin gifted him the elemental platform upon the World Tree. A place of safety for one who is a stranger in all lands upon Yggdrasil. It is said that his telescope is a wonder, fashioned in a partnership between alfar, dvergar and jotun under the watchful eye of Iuvenis. It can see all things, all places, in miniature and draw a small part of the essence of any element into itself. Iuvenis keeps the secret of its power closely guarded but, it is whispered that he has set his own heart within it to power it – explaining why a being whose name means youth most often appears as an elderly man.

Access to the platform is through the colours of the rainbow from red to violet and then stepping out to the entrance (as if accessing it from the trunk of the world tree. It is an incredibly long and wide deck, commanding views of all the worlds on Yggdrasil, except perhaps Asgard. Despite the lack of view Iuvenis’s telescope can see and gather elements from Asgard. When you reach the platform walk to the end where Iuvenis awaits with his telescope. It is a truly wondrous looking machine, the sort you would expect in the best fantasy novels with a large, extendable lens and a little drawer where the element the telescope ‘gathers’ is housed. Its metal is perhaps burnished brass, copper, bronze or gold.

• Prepare self.
• State name, put on any astral/ physical indicators of your vitki self.
• Invite your fetch in.
• Ask for blessings from your soul clan.
• Cross slowly through each colour of the rainbow onto elemental platform
• Go to Iuvenis and, with permission, look through the telescope and hone in on a single element from a single world. Let the telescope ‘gather it’
• Open the drawer to see the element more closely, Iuvenis may tell you about and one of his visitors may also have teachings for you

Jelena and her companion Bucu are not permanent residents on the platform but they often visit. Jelena trusts Iuvenis more than most and they share a love of exploration of the elements – even though their methodologies are vastly different. Jelena is a giantess; she was born in Midgard before the giants left. She was wild and carefree as a girl and spent most of her time roaming the land around her parent’s stead – she is often referred at as ‘land-maiden’ by those who know of her. Her name is not really Jelena (which means ‘light’), she will not reveal her actual name as she does not give her power away easily.

When I first met her I thought she was a very strange creature; sometimes she would appear totally mute and tended to shuffle awkwardly across the elemental platform without any seeming intention. At other times she seemed sharp, witty and full of life. She laughed very hard indeed when I finally realised that the shuffling figure was not Jelena at all but her companion Bucu. 

Bucu is a wight. Wights can be spirits bonded to a particular space but they can also be ‘edge-spirits’. I experience these as odd, grey, creatures; quite small with a curiosity that can lead them into trouble. They aren’t bad as such, but they aren’t good either and they can be troublesome. They used to show up for me a lot when I did readings for people – they seemed to be attracted to the energy. My understanding is that Bucu seemed like an ordinary unattached wight but he grew a fondness for Jelena who, despite her parent’s protestations, left out offerings for him pretty much every night. Bucu has a taste for the unusual – we’ll come to that in a moment.

One day Jelena was out walking the marshland when she saw a fisherman watching her. She had seen him before but only noticed now how his eyes followed her. She felt an affinity to him and approached him. When he took her hand a strange thing happened. As their skin touched Jelena was flooded by the passion of his emotions for her; this is how bonded relationships are initiated with the Jotun and she opened herself willingly to it. She got more than she expected though;  she saw how this new relationship flowed not just in the present but into the future. She saw the man seek out her true name so he could control her, saw him drive her parents from the land and claim it as his own, saw him become cruel and violent as her spirit refused to be subdued by him and, finally, she saw her own hand strike him down. It was all she could do, as she watched the story unfold so clearly in her mind, not to grab her dagger and stab him with it in the moment. But she didn’t. She walked away. Jelena is increibly sensitive to the energies of others which is both a blessing and a curse.

There are now two things that distinguish Jelena and Bucu from their kind:

1. Jelena cannot shift her shape at will, perhaps because of the damaged bonding rite. However, because she has wight energy within her now, she does over time take on the appearance of the land and people with who she spends a lot of time. If she wishes, she will offer her own form of healing to you. The healing is elemental, but 
2. Bucu has developed a highly attached bond to Jelena – perhaps because she holds his energy inside her (and he periodically renews it I believe). He is unusual for a wight because his attachment is to a person, not to a land. Not just a person, a person who reflects his energy back at him making him far more autonomous and independent than most wights. Bucu loves to do one thing more than anything else – he loves to consume elements and shift to reveal their true nature through the form he takes on. He cannot adopt ‘humanoid’ qualities very easily (hence his ridiculous impression of Jelena which he does whenever he feels she is not paying enough attention to him). However, when he tastes an element (or combination of elements) there is no end to the exquisite shapes, sounds, colours and mannerisms his body will adopt

 Jelena errects her tent upon the elemental platform. It is large, similar to a bell tent. Inside there is always a fire (for Bucu) and a healing area covered in woven cloths and skins where Jelena sometimes offers healing. 

More than anything else Jelena and Bucu ask for respect for the earth from those who come to seek their wisdom. They may also ask you to make repeat trips – Bucu has a greater appetite for sampling different elements than Iuvenis and Jelena have time for.

• Hone in on one element with Iuvenis’s telescope
• Bring a sample back
• Receive teachings From Iuvenis
• Move to Jelena’s tent bringing element with you
• Give the element to Jelena who will feed it to Bucu
• Learn from how Bucu shifts

Stjarna-skarð is of the dvergar. Long ago, when her kin left Midgard to settle in Nidavelir she chose to stay. She had been a star-gazer for many years, mapping the constellations of Midgard and the glittering halls of the new dwarf home held no charm for her. She was also, in secret, devising a healing system under the tutelage of Eyrgjafa (ear-gya-far), a daughter of the sea goddess Ran, whose name means sand-donor. Her interest lay less in the physical elements of the worlds and more in the elements of the soul – in particular, the tiny shards of self that she could see, by starlight, when people lost a part of themselves.

Stjarna-skarð found that, when the parts of the soul were returned, even if they had been cleansed – there would come a point, often lifetimes later, when the same soul part would be lost again. She realised that these soul parts each contained within them a secret song that the mod needed to understand so it could integrate the learnings, experiences and people the soul part’s song would attract.

Eyrgjafa taught her how to gently extract the soul part from the body by weaving a delicate web for it, the web would hold it, not letting it be lost, but allowing Stjarna-skarð to work with people to come to understand their soul parts and integrate them. Her healing abilities became so famous that another of Heimdall’s mothers, Ulfrun, sent one of the wolves from her own pack to travel with Stjarna-skarð and protect her from those who wanted the gift without the price. When we visit Stjarna-skarð she will examine the soul part and explain the price. It can take many healings and much work to successfully integrate the bright lessons of a soul part. I can personally attest that, after a healing with her, I was able to complete a healing journey that starts just under 30 years previously.

You will recognise her by her deep blue cloak woven with stars and, of course, by her companion wolf.  Her platform tent seems quite simply, often made of a dark draping black-grey cloth. If you seek healing from her, make sure you intend to complete the journey. She likes healers so you may also want to share your own experiences of healing others with her.