The Words of the Dream
This is going to be something a bit different. I have been stuck on this thought lately. A sort of ancient thought half-formed in the collective consciousness of the ancestors, thousands of years ago. Before the beginning of agriculture. Or perhaps it was the beginning of agriculture. The awareness that a seed when planted in the belly of the earth would grow. But just a single seed from a single plant. Before the thought had been realized that the same could be done with a whole field of seeds. Perhaps the knowing that if you planted one of the berries instead of eating them all there would be more berries the following year. If you planted one seed of a plant for medicine then the medicine would be greater that next summer. The magic of the belly of Jord.
Before the thought of Jord by that name, but she had a name even then. Those ancient minds knew the power of the Earth, they knew her and venerated her. But Jord's belly did not just spark new life. It was the place where life returned. That deep chasm of swallowing earth. The mound. The belly of Jord had its own cycles. Longer cycles than just summer and winter. Cycles of birth and death. Chthonic cycles of transformation.
Deep under the earth realization occurred. A sort of shapeshifting in which a seed sprouted. In which the deceased turned to ancestor. Awe, at an almost terrifying incomprehensible force. A force that needed name on the ancient tongue. A force where ending was beginning. Where beginning was ending. There, in the time when language was still young, words were still forming. Awareness was like an extended dream. In that dream, a single seed in a calloused palm. Then dug into the deep fertile earth. Its petrichor smell lingered on the air as the surface was breached. Delicately the seed finds its home there in the pit that was dug carefully by caring hands. The process steeped with purpose and awareness. And softly, the earth is folded over that seed, like blankets against the winter's harshness. Tucked in, warm, and safe. And the dreamer blinks. The world has changed.
The harsh cold has come. The time to follow the animal. To be animal. To survive. Without agriculture, there aren't the food stores to stay in this place. The first frost lingers. It is time to pack up and follow the herds. The first snow falls. And somewhere in the dreaming there are thoughts of the arctic hare. Of how it with its large feet manages to glide across the surface of the snow. And some sort of inspiration sparks. With big feet, perhaps, perhaps then humans too could float on the snow. And someone somewhere creates from wood the first skis. And there Ullr lingers, at the edge of the trees, his name not yet uttered, but his power already known. With these wooden feet the dreamer can move more swiftly in the snow, capture the herd, hunt, and survive.
Far behind, and deep below, the seed is nestled safely in the belly of Jord. All of the earth is paused, bated breath. Tucked under the snow it is muffled stillness. Animals hibernate. Jord herself lays dormant. All the whisperings of life fall silent while the gods and spirits shriek above on the North Wind. And up there in the deepest dark of the longest night the dreamers huddle around a fire to stave off that intense cold of midwinter. Around them in the forest the wolves howl, drawing closer. Smelling the death that comes with a long winter.
But to the dreamer wolves are equal parts friend and foe. Because the wolves too hunt in groups there in the forest. And when the wolves can't find the herd, then they turn upon the dreamer. The wolves sense the weakest ones among the dreamers. They smell the scent of death upon them already. Wolves don't suffer weakness even in their own ranks. Still, if the dreamer has a little bit of meat from the hunt and a warm fire the wolves might be lured closer. And slowly, the wolves see another way of being. What if the wolf could pack with humans? What if they hunted together? With their combined skills both could share in the spoils of the more successful hunt. The wolf now sits gnawing a bone beside the fire with the dreamer. No longer that frightening howling on a long sunless night. For the sun has returned, and the world is shifting.
The seed is having thoughts of its own. The first spark of transformation. The awareness that the thaw will come soon. That winter's harshness has been survived. Slowly, the first crack in its shell appears.
The dreamer is on the move again. There is a remembrance of that seed, deep within the earth. So after another hunt, camp is packed up and the dreamer moves back towards that summer place. This time is in some ways more dangerous for the dreamer than the winter itself. Hunger knots the belly as the meat diminishes along with the snow. Skiis won't help now, crawling through the mud of the forest floor, gnawing on at roots and bark when the meat comes to its end. Will the wolf return to being wolf, now that the meat is gone, turn on its human pack? Will the hunger bring on illness before the chill leaves the air, before the first shoots of spring bring renewed food source?
Far below, the seed has put out roots, reaching down, down in that earthen belly, seeking the nutrients that will continue its growth.
The ice has come off the river and the dreamer sits hungrily with a sharpened stick on its bank. Patient, because it is now fish or death.
The pre-leaf lifts its head above the soil.
The fish is caught.
And so, summer will begin.
But not all the dreamers survived. And now that the chasmic earth's belly is thawed, it is time to dig deep again. And bury there the ones that did not survive the winter. One dreamer clutches in death an acorn, tight in their fist. And as they are laid to rest, so too the acorn enters the soil. And so the dreamer transforms into ancestor, and enriched by the body decaying there in the mound, the acorn turns to oak. Transformation.
Slowly, the dream itself shifts for the dreamer. As the dreamer names the dream. Jord is spoken. Ullr too is given voice. The gods are named. And another change occurs. For a spark has come to the dreamer and now that thought of the seed in the ground has turned to one of seeds in a field, and agriculture is born. The dreamer is not now just dependent on the forest for survival of the harsh winter. Something has shifted.
And gradually, the words of the dream are recorded on stone, and then parchment. And gradually, it is not necessary to remember the words of the dream at all. And some of the dreamers don't remember the words. They forget the names of the gods. And forget the connection with the land. So far removed from the dream that they forget the wolves that circle on the darkest night. But the wolves are still there, Hati and Skoll circle closer. The dreamer has forgotten the dream, and forgotten their connection to the earth. The dreamer works against the earth, without remembering that ancient connection that still binds them. The wolves circle closer. The dreamer fails to hear their howls of warning.
The dream has been fading so long, so gradually, that the dreamer didn't realize at all that some of it was missing. Slowly, the ancient words of the dream faded, replaced with words like civilization, then industry, the corporation. And the first words of the dream faded. The first word of all to fade, was the word for that deep earth belly, the place where life and death transforms. The word of the cavern, the hollow of the mound, that little hole where the seed is placed. Do you remember that word, dreamer?
Image Source:
“Bedtime Stories” by Jessica Boehman
