Friday, May 25, 2012

Frigga

I've been married for going on 14 years.  I have two jobs and am trying to write a book on runes.  I'm a pretty busy lady, and I decided I needed to connect to Frigga.

Frigga, Queen of the Aesir, wife of Odin, rider (in her hypostasis of Holle) in the Wild Hunt, has a lot on her plate.  Odin wanders, and she is left running the Nine Worlds.  She is allowed to sit in Hlidskjalf although she does not speak about what she sees.  I picture her as witnessing several drinking parties featuring the antics of Odin and his blood-brother Loki--perhaps that's why she lives in Fensalir and not Valhalla!

To help me focus on her and her virtues, I bought the statue by Paul Borda, where she sits in Nordic dress with a distaff of flax and a baby on her lap.  The little brochure says that the baby is the infant Baldr, but I disagree. I think it's a baby who has died and gone to Frigga's hall.  This is another aspect of Dame Holle.

My own feelings about Frigga are that she's a woman of a certain age, old enough to have grown children.  Though she may retreat to Fensalir much of the time, I imagine her as still being mistress of Valhalla.  Someone has to keep the place stocked in food other than pork and mead, and check in on the thralls who change the rushes and clean the tables when the Einharjar are off fighting that day.  I'm very sure they leave a terrifying mess at the end of a night's partying, but she can handle it.  She knows how to delegate.

When I first got the statue and made an offering of American Honey*, I got the distinct impression that Frigga took a look at the condo we live in and was judging me.  Members of my kindred said that if that was the feeling I got, I was probably right.  I've now been greeting her every morning when I get up and go to the kitchen for breakfast, and I think she's mellowed out to me.  I've got a Lokean husband and two cats, so I might as well have a host of Einharjar partying all night long.  Frigga quickly moved from critic to sympathizer and I am so, so grateful.  I feel her presence as I pay the household bills, clean up the kitchen and head out to yet another weekend spent with the Army.

Frigga won't make my life less hectic, but she will advise and consent.  Asatru is a religion for believers who want to live their lives as responsible adults, so this is a great thing.

*American Honey is a Wild Turkey product that is bourbon and mead.  Odin loves it.